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TIE SPANIARDS 



THEIR COUNTRY. 



BY RICHARD FORD, 

AUTHOR OF THE HANDBOOK OF SPAIN. 



NEW EDITION, COMPLETE IN ONE VOLUME. 



NEW YORK: 
GEORGE P. PUTNAM, 155 BROADWAY. 

1848. 



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f^iii 



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HONOURABLE MRS. FORD, 

These pages, which she has been, so good as to peruse and approve of, 
are dedicated, in the hopes that other fair readers may follow her 
example, 

By her very affectionate 

Husband and Servant, 

Richard Ford. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

PAOK. 

A General View of Spain — Isolation — King of the Spains — Castilian 
Precedence— Localism — Want of Union — Admiration of Spain — M. 
Thiers in Spain , . 1 

CHAPTER II. 

The Geography of Spain — Zones — Mountains — The Pyrenees — The 
Gabacho, and French Politics . ... 7 



CHAPTER in. 
The Rivers of Spain — Bridges— Navigation — The Ebro and Tagus . 23 

CHAPTER IV. 

Divisions into Provinces — Ancient Demarcations — Modern Depart- 
ments — Population — Revenue — Spanish Stocks .... 30 

CHAPTER V. 

Travelling in Spain — Steamers— Roads, Roman, Monastic, and Royal 
— Modern Railway — English Speculations 40 

CHAPTER VI. 

Post Office in Spain— Travelling with Post Horses— Riding post — Mails 
and Diligences, Galeras, Coches de DoUeras, Drivers and Manner 
of Driving, and Oaths 53 

CHAPTER VII. 
SpanishHorsea— Mules— Asses— Muleteers— Maragatos ... 69 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

PAGB. 

Riding Tour in Spain — Pleasures of it — Pedestrian Tour — Choice of 
Companions — Rules for a Riding Tour — Season of year — Day's 
journey — Management of Horse ; his Feet ; Shoes • General Hints 80 



CHAPTER IX. 

The Rider's cos.tume — Alforjas : their contents — The Bota, and How 
to use it — Pig Skins and Borracha — Spanish Money — Onzas and 
smaller coins 94 



CHAPTER X. 

Spanish Servants: their Character — Travelling Groom, Cook, and 
Valet ... ... . .105 



CHAPTER XI. 

A Spanish Cook — Philosophy of Spanish Cuisine — Sauce — Difficulty 
of Commissariat — The Provend — Spanish Hares and Rabbits — The 
011a — Garbanzos — Spanish Pigs — Bacon and Hams — Omelette — 
Salad and Gazpacho . . ... 119 



CHAPTER XII. 

Drinks of Spain — Water — Irrigation — Fountains — Spanish Thirsti- 
ness — The Alcarraza — Water Carriers — Ablutions — Spanish Choc- 
olate — Agraz — Beer Lemonade 136 

CHAPTER XIII. 

Spanish Wines — Spanish Indifference — Wine-making — Vins du Pays 
— Local Wines — Benicarlci — Valdepenas 146 

CHAPTER XIV. 

Sherry Wines — The Sherry District — Origin of the Name — Varieties 
of Soil — Of Grapes — Pajarete — Rqjas Clemente — Cultivation of 
Vines — Best Vineyards — The Vintage — Amontillado — The Capataz 
— The Bodega — Sherry Wine — Arrope and Madre Vino — A lecture 
on Sherry in the Cellar— at the Table— Price of Fine Sherry— Fal- 
sification of Sherry — Manzanilla — The Alpistera . . . .161 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER XV. 

PACK 

Spanish Inns: Why so Indifferent — The Fonda — Modern Improve- 
ments — The Posada — Spanish Innkeepers — The Venta : Arrival in 
it — Arrangement — Garlic — Dinner — Evening — Night — Bill — Iden- 
tity with the Inns of the Ancients 167 

CHAPTER XVI. 

Spanish Robbers — A Robber Adventure — Guardias Civiles — Exag- 
geratedAccounts — Cross of the Murdered — Idle Robber Tales — 
French Bandittiphobia — Robber History — Guerrilleros — Smugglers 
— Jose Maria — Robbers of the First Class — The Ratero — Miguelites 
— Escorts and Escopeteros — Passes, Protections, and Talismans — 
Execution of a Robber 188 

CHAPTER XVII. 

The Spanish Doctor : his Social Position — Medical Abuses — Hospitals 
— Medical Education — Lunatic Asylums— Foundling Hospital of 
Seville — Medical Pretensions — Dissection — Family Physician- 
Consultations — Medical Costume— Prescriptions — Druggists— Snake 
Broth— Salve for Knife-cuts 215 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

Spanish Spiritual Remedies for the Body — Miraculous Relics — Sanative 
Oils — Philosophy of Relic Remedies — Midwifery and the Cinta of 
Tortosa— Bull of Crusade 239 

CHAPTER XIX. 

The Spanish Figaro — Mustachios — Whiskers — Beards — Bleeding — 
Heraldic Blood — Blue, Red, and Black Blood — Figaro's Shop — The 
Baratero — Shaving and Toothdrawing . .... 259 

CHAPTER XX. 

What to observe in Spain — How to observe — Spanish Incuriousness and 
Suspicions — French Spies and Plunderers — Sketching in Spain — 
Difficulties ; How surmounted — Efficacy of Passports and Bribes — 
Uncertainty and Want of Information in the Natives . . . 269 

CHAPTER XXI. 

Origin of Bull-fight or Festival, and its Religious Character — 
Fiestas Reales — Royal Feasts — Charles I. at one — Discontinuance of 
the Old System — Sham Bull-fights— Plaza de Toros— Slang Lan- 
guage — Spanish Bulls — Breeds — The Going to a Bull-fight . . 290 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

PASS. 

The Bull-fight — Opening of Spectacle — ^First Act, and Appearance of 
the Bull — The Picador — Bull Bastinado — The Horses, and their 
Cruel Treatment — Fire and Dogs — The Second Act — The Chulos 
and their Darts— The Third Act— The Matador— Death of the Bull 
— The Conclusion, and Philosophy of the Amusement — Its Effect on 
Ladies 305 

CHAPTER XXIII. ' 

Spanish Theatre ; Old and Modern Drama ; Arrangement of Play- 
houses — The Henroost — The Fandango ; National Dances — A Gipsy 
Ball — Italian Opera — National Songs and Guitars .... 324 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

Manufacture of Cigars — Tobacco — Smuggling via Gibraltar — Cigars 
of Ferdinand VII. — Making a Cigarrito — Zumalacarreguy and the 
Schoolmaster — Time and money wasted in smoking — Postscript on 
Spanish Stock 341 



THE 



SPANIABDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 



CHAPTER I. 



A general Tiew of Spain — Isolation — King of the Spains — Castilian pre- 
cedence — Localism — Want of Union — Admiration of Spain — M. Thiers 
in Spain. 

The kingdom of Spain, which looks so compact on the map, is 
composed of many distinct provinces, each of which in earlier 
times formed a separate and independent kingdom ; and although 
all are now united under one crown by marriage, inheritance, 
conquest, and other circumstances, the original distinctions, geo- 
graphical as well as social, remain almost unaltered. The lan- 
guage, costume, habits, and local character of the natives, vary 
no less than the climate and productions of the soil. The chains 
of mountains which intersect the whole peninsula, and the deep 
rivers which separate portions of it, have, for many years, 
operated as so many walls and moats, by cutting off intercommu- 
nication, and by fostering that tendency to isolation which must 
exist in all hilly countries, where good roads and bridges do not 
abound. As similar circumstances led the people of ancient 
Greece to split into small principalities, tribes and clans, so in 
Spain, man, following the example of the nature by which he is 
surrounded, has little in common with the inhabitant of the ad- 
joining district ; and these differences are increased and perpetu- 
ated by the ancient jealousies and inveterate dislikes, which petty 
and contiguous states keep up with such tenacious memory. The 
general comprehensive term " Spain," which is convenient for 
geographers and politicians, is calculated to mislead the traveller, 

PART I. 2 



2 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

for it would be far from easy to predicate any single thing of 
Spain or Spaniards which will be equally applicable to all its 
heterogeneous component parts. The north-western provinces 
are more rainy than Devonshire, while the centre plains are 
more calcined ihan those of the Deserts of Arabia, and the 
littoral south or eastern coasts altogether Algerian. The rude 
agricultural Gallician, the industrious manufacturing artisan of 
Barcelona, the gay and voluptuous Andalucian, the sly vindictive 
Valencian, are as essentially different from each other as so many 
distinct characters at the same masquerade. It will therefore 
be more convenient to the traveller to take each province by 
itself and treat it in detail, keeping on the look-out for those 
peculiarities, those social and natural characteristics or idiosyn- 
cracies which particularly belong to each division, and distinguish 
it from its neighbors. The Spaniards who have written on 
their own geography and statistics, and who ought to be sup- 
posed to understand their own country and institutions the best, 
have found it advisable to adopt this arrangement from feeling the 
utter impossibility of treating Spain (where union is not unity) as 
a whole. There is no king of Spain ; among the infinity of king- 
doms, the list of which swells out the royal style, that of " Spain" 
is not found ; he is king of the Spains, Rex Hispaniarum, Eey 
de las Espanas, not " Eey de Epana.'" Philip II., called by his 
countrymen el prudente, the prudent, wishing to fuse down his 
heterogeneous subjects, was desirous after bis conquest of Por- 
tugal, which consolidated his dominion, to call himself King of 
Spain, which he then really was ; but this alteration of title was 
beyond the power of even his despotism ; such was the opposition 
of the kingdoms of Arragon and Navarre, which never gave up 
the hopes of shaking off the yoke of Castile, and recovering their 
former independence, while the empire provinces of New and 
Old Castile refused in anywise to compromise their claims of 
pre-eiTiinence. They from early times, as now, took the lead in 
national nomenclatures ; hence " Castellano," Castilian, is syno- 
nymous with Spaniard, and particularly with the proud genuine 
older-stock. " Castellano a las derechas, means a Spaniard to 
the backbone ; " Hahlar Castellano," to speak Castilian, is the 
correct expression for speaking the Spanish language. Spain 



LOCALISM OF SPANIARDS. 



again was long without the advantage of a fixed metropolis, like 
Rome, Paris, or London, which have been capitals from their 
foundation, and recognized and submitted to as such ; here, the 
cities of Leon, Burgos, Toledo, Seville, Valladolid, and others, 
have each in their turns been the capitals of the kingdom. This 
constant change and short-lived pre-eminence has weakened any- 
prescriptive superiority of one city over another, and has been a 
cause of national weakness by raising up rivalries and disputes 
about precedence, which is one of the most fertile sources of 
dissension among a punctilious people. In fact the king was the 
state, and wherever he fixed his head-quarters was the court, 
La Corte, a word still synonymous with Madrid, which now 
claims to be the only residence of the Sovereign — the residenz, 
as Germans would say ; otherwise, when compared with the 
cities above mentioned, it is a modern place ; from not having a 
bishop or cathedral, of which latter some older cities possess two, 
it has not even the rank of a ciudad, or city, but is merely de- 
nominated villa, or town. In moments of national danger it ex- 
ercises little influence over the Peninsula : at the same time, 
from being the seat of the court and government, and therefore 
the centre of patronage and fashion, it attracts from all parts 
those who wish to make their fortune ; yet the capital has a hold 
on the ambition rather than on the affections of the nation at large. 
The inhabitants of the different provinces think, indeed, that 
Madrid is the greatest and richest court in the world, but their 
hearts are in their native localities. " Mi paisano," my fellow- 
countryman, or rather my fellow-countyman, fellow-parishioner, 
does not mean Spaniard, but Andalucian, Catalonian, as the case 
may be. When a Spaniard is asked. Where do you come from ? 
the reply is, " Soy liijo de Murcia — Jiijo de Gra?iada," " I am a 
son of Murcia — a son of Granada," &c. This is strictly analo- 
gous to the " Children of Israel," the " Beni" of the Spanish 
Moors, and to this day the Arabs of Cairo call themselves chil- 
dren of that town, " Ihn el Musr,'' &c. ; and just as the Milesian 
Irishman is " a hoy from Tipperary," &c., and ready to fight 
with any one who is so also, against all who are not of that ilk ; 
similar too is the clanship of the Highlander ; indeed, every. 
where, not perhaps to the same extent as in Spain, the being of 



4 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

the same province or town creates a powerful freemasonry ; the 
parties cling together like old school-fellows. It is a ho7ne and 
really binding feeling. To the spot of their birth all their recollec- 
tions, comparisons, and eulogies are turned ; nothing to them 
comes up to their particular province, that is, their real country. 
" La Patria," meaning Spain at large, is a subject of declama- 
tion, fine words, palahras — palaver, in which all, like Orien- 
tals, delight to indulge, and to which their grandiloquent idiom 
lends itself readily ; but their patriotism is parochial, and self is 
the centre of Spanish gravity. Like the German, they may sing 
and spout about Fatherland : in both cases the theory is splendid, 
but in practice each Spaniard thinks his own province or town the 
best in the Peninsula, and himself the finest fellow in it. From 
the earliest period down to the present all observers have been 
struck with this localism as a salient feature in the character of 
the Iberians, who never would amalgamate, never would, as 
Strabo said, put their shields together — never would sacrifice their 
own local private interest for the general good ; on the contrary, 
in the hour of need they had, as at present, a constant tendency 
to separate into distinct juntas, " collective" assemblies, each of 
which only thought of its own views, utterly indifferent to the in- 
jury thereby occasioned to what ought to have been the common 
cause of all. Common danger and interest scarcely can keep 
them together, the tendency of each being rather to repel than to 
attract the other : the common enemy once removed, they in- 
stantly fall to loggerheads among each other, especially if there 
be any spoil to be divided ; scarcely ever, as in the East, can the 
energy of one individual bind the loose staves by the iron power 
of a master mind ; remove the band, and the centrifugal mem- 
bers instantaneously disunite. Thus the virility and vitality of 
the noble people have been neutralized : they have, indeed, strong 
limbs and honest hearts ; but, as in the Oriental parable, " a head" 
is wanting to direct and govern : hence Spain is to-day, as it al- 
ways has been, a bundle of small bodies tied together by a rope of 
sand, and, being without union is also without strength, and has been 
beaten in detail. The much-used phrase Espanolismo expresses 
rather a " dislike of foreign dictation," and the " self-estimation" of 
Spaniards, Espanoles sohre todos, than any real patriotic love of 



ADMIRATION OF SPAIN. 



country, however highly they rate its excellences and superiority 
to eveiy other one under heaven : this opinion is condensed in 
one of those pithy proverbs which, nowhere more than in Spain, 
are the exponents of popular sentiment : it runs thus, — " Quien 
dice Espana, dice todo," which means, " Whoever says Spain, 
says everything." A foreigner may perhaps think this a trifle 
too comprehensive and exclusive ; but he will do well to express 
no doubts on the subject, since he will only be set down by every 
native as either jealous, envious or ignorant, and probably all 
three. 

To boast of Spain's strength, said the Duke of Wellington, is 
the national weakness. Every infinitesimal particle which con- 
stitutes nosotros, or ourselves, as Spaniards term themselves, will 
talk of his country as if the armies were still led to victory by the 
mighty Charles V., or the councils managed by Philip II. instead 
of Louis-Philippe. Fortunate, indeed, was it, according to a 
Castilian preacher, that the Pyrenees concealed Spain when the 
Wicked One tempted the Son of Man by an offer of all the king- 
doms of the world, and the glory of them. This, indeed, was 
predicated in the mediseval or dark ages, but few peninsular con- 
gregations, even in these enlightened times, would dispute the in- 
ference. It was but the other day that a foreigner was relating 
in a tertulia, or conversazione of Madrid, the well-known anecdote 
of Adam's revisit to the earth. The narrator explained how our 
first father on lighting in Italy was perplexed and taken aback ; 
how, on ci'ossing the Alps into Germany, he found nothing that 
he could understand — how matters got darker and stranger at 
Paris, until on his reaching England he was altogether lost, con- 
founded, and abroad, being unable to make out any thing. Spain 
was his next point, where, to his infinite satisfaction, he found 
himself quite at home, so little had things changed since his ab- 
sence, or indeed since the sun at its creation first shone over 
Toledo. The story concluded, a distinguished Spaniard, who 
was present, hurt perhaps at the somewhat protestant-dissenting 
tone of the speaker, gravely remarked, the rest of the party coin- 
ciding, — Si, Senor, y tenia razon ; la Espana es Paradiso — 
" Adam, Sir, was right, for Spain is paradise ;" and in many 
respects this worthy, zealous gentleman was not wrong, although 



THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 



it is affirmed by some ol' hid countrymen that some portions of it 
are inhabited by persons not totally exempt from original sin ; 
thus the Valencians will say of their ravishing huerta, or garden, 
Es un paradiso halltado por demonios, — "It is an Eden peopled 
by subjects of his Satanic Majesty." Again, according to the 
natives, Murcia, a land overflowing with milk and honey, where 
Flora and Pomona dispute the prize with Ceres and Bacchus, 
possesses a cielo y suelo bueno, el entresuelo malo, has " a sky and 
soil that are good, while all between is indiiferent ;" which the 
entresol occupant must settle to his liking. 

Another little anecdote, like a straw thrown up in the air, will 
point out the direction in which the wind blows. Monsieur Thiers, 
the great historical romance writer, in his recent hand-gallop 
tour through the Peninsular, passed a few days only at Madrid ; 
his mind being, as logicians would say, of a subjective rather than 
an objective turn, that is, disposed rather to the consideration of 
the ego, and to things relating to self, than to those that do not, 
he scarcely looked more at any thing there, than he did during 
his similar run through London : " Behold," said the Spaniards, 
" that little gabacho ; he dares not remain, nor raise his eyes 
from the ground in tliis land, whose vast superiority wounds his 
personal and national vanity." There is nothing new in this. 
The old Castilian has an older saying : — Si Dios no fuese Dios, 
seria rey de las Espanas, y el de Francia su cocinero — " If God 
were not God, he would make himself king of the Spains, with 
him of France for his cook." Lope de Vega, without de- 
rogating one jot from these paradisiacal pretensions, used him of 
England better. His sonnet on the romantic trip to Madrid ran 
thus : — 

" Carlos Stuardo soy, 

due siendo amor mi guia 
Al cieh de Espaha voy, 

Por ver mi estrella Maria." 

" I am Charles Stuart, who, with love for my guide, hasten to 
the heaven Spain to see my star Mary." The Virgin, it must be 
remembered, after whom this infanta was named, is held by every 
Spaniard to be the brightest luminary, and the sole empress of 
heaven. 



GEOGRAPHY OF SPAIN. 



CHAPTER II. 

The Geography of Spain — Zones — Mountains — The Pyrenees — The Ga- 
bacho, and French Politics. 

From Spain being the most southern country in Europe, it is 
very natural that those who have never been there, and who in 
England criticise those who have, should imagine the climate to 
be even more delicious than that of Italy or Greece. This is far 
from being the fact ; some, indeed, of the sea coasts and sheltered 
plains in the S. and E. provinces are warm in winter, and ex- 
posed to an almost African sun in summer, but the N. and W. 
districts are damp and rainy for the greater part of the year, 
while the interior is either cold and cheerless, or sunburnt and 
wind-blown : winters have occurred at Madrid of such severity 
that sentinels have been frozen to death; and frequently all com- 
munication is suspended by the depth of the snow in the elevated 
roads over the mountain passes of the Castiles. All, therefore, 
who are about to travel through the Peninsula, are particularly 
cautioned to consider well their line of route beforehand, and to 
select certain portions to be visited at certain seasons, and thus 
avoid every local disadvantage. 

One glance at a map of Europe will convey a clearer notion 
of the relative position of Spain in regard to other countries than 
pages of letter- pi'ess : this is an advantage which every school- 
boy possesses over the Plinys and Strabos of antiquity ; the an- 
cients were content to compare the shape of the Peninsula to that 
of a bull's hide, nor was the comparison ill chosen in some re- 
spects. We will not weary readers with details of latitude and 
longitude, but just mention that the whole superficies of the Pe- 
ninsula, including Portugal, contains upwards of 19,000 square 
leagues, of which somewhat more than 15,500 belong to Spain; 
it is thus almost twice as large as the British Islands, and only 



8 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

one-tenth smaller than France ; the circumference or coast-line 
is estimated at 750 leagues. This compact and isolated territory, 
inhabited by a fine, hardy, warlike population, ought therefore, 
to have rivalled France in military power, while its position be- 
tween those two great seas which command the commerce of the 
old and new world, its indented line of coast, abounding in bays 
and harbors, offered every advantage of vying with England in 
maritime enterprise. 

Nature has provided commensurate outlets for the infinite pro- 
ductions of a country which is rich alike in everything that is to 
be found either on the face or in the bowels of the earth ; for the 
mines and quarries abound with precious metals and marbles, 
from gold to iron, from the agate to coal, while a fertile soil and 
every possible variety of climate admit of unlimited cultivation 
of the natural productions of the temperate or tropical zones : 
thus in the province of Granada the sugar-cane and cotton-tree 
luxuriate at the base of ranges which are covered with eternal 
snow : a w^ide range is thus afforded to the botanist, who may 
ascend by zones, through every variety of vegetable strata, from 
the hothouse plant growing wild, to the hardiest lichen. It has, 
indeed, required the utmost ingenuity and bad government of 
man to neutralize the prodigality of advantages which Provi- 
dence has lavished on this highly-favored land, and which, 
wliile under the dominion of the Romans and Moors, resembled 
an Eden, a garden of plenty and delight, when in the words of an 
old author, there was nothing idle, nothing barren in Spain — 
"nihil otiosum, nihil sterile in Hispania." A sad change has 
come over this fair vision, and now the bulk of the Peninsula 
offers a picture of neglect and desolation, moral and physical, 
which it is painful to contemplate : the face of nature and the 
mind of man have too often been dwarfed and curtailed of their 
fair proportions ; they have either been neglected and their in- 
herent fertility allowed to run into vice and luxuriant weeds, 
which it will show against any country in the world, or their 
energies have been misdirected, and a capability of all good con- 
verted into an element equally powerful for evil ; but pride and 
laziness are here as everywhere the keys to poverty, aUivez y 
pereza, llaves de pobreza. 



CLIMATE AND ELEVATION OF SPAIN. 9 

The geological construction of Spain is very peculiar, and 
unlike that of most other countries ; it is almost one mountain or 
agglomeration of mountains, as those of our countrymen who are 
speculating in Spanish railroads are just beginning to discover. 
The interior rises on every side from the sea, and the central 
portions are higher than any other table-lands in Europe, ranging 
on an average from two to three thousand feet above the level of 
the sea, while from this elevated plain chains of mountains rise 
again to a still greater height. Madrid, which stands on this 
central plateau, is situated about 2000 feet above the level of 
Naples, which lies in the same latitude ; the mean temperature 
of Madrid is 50°, while that of Naples is 63° 30' ; it is to this 
difference of elevation that the extraordinary difference of cli- 
mate and vegetable productions between the two capitals is to be 
ascribed. Fruits which flourish on the coasts of Provence and 
Genoa, which lie four degrees more to the north than any por- 
tion of Spain, are rarely to be met with in the elevated interior 
of the Peninsula : on the other hand, the low and sunny mari- 
time belts abound with productions of a tropical vegetation. The 
mountainous character and general aspect of the coast are nearly 
analogous throughout the circuit which extends from the Basque 
Provinces to Cape Finisterre : and offer a remarkable contrast 
to those sunny alluvial plains which extend, more or less, from 
Cadiz to Barcelona, and which closely resemble each other in 
vegetable productions, such as the fig, orange, pomegranate, aloe, 
and carob tree, which grow everywhere in profusion, except in 
those parts where the mountains come down abruptly into the 
sea itself. Again, the central districts, composed of vast plains 
and steppes, Parameras, Tierras de campo, y Secanos, closely 
resemble each other in their monotonous denuded aspect, in 
their scarcity of fruit and timber, and their abundance of cereal 
productions. 

Spanish geographers have divided the Peninsula into severx 
distinct chains of mountains. These commence with the Pyre- 
nees and end with the Boetican or Andalucian ranges : these 
Cordilleras, or lines of lofty ridges, arise on each side of inter- 
vening plains, which once formed the basins of internal lakes, 
until the accumulated waters, by bursting through the obstruc- 
2* 



10 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

tions by which they were dammed up, found a passage to the 
ocean : the dip or inclination of the country lies from the east 
towards the west, and, accordingly, the chief rivers which form 
the drains and principal water- sheds of the greater parts of the 
surface, flow into the Atlantic : their courses, like the basins 
through which they pass, lie in a transversal and almost a 
parallel direction ; thus the Duero, the Tagus, the Guadiana, 
and the Guadalquivir, all flow into their recipient between their 
distinct chains of mountains. The sources of the supply to these 
leading arteries arise in the longitudinal range of elevations 
which descends all through the Peninsula, approaching rather to 
the eastern than to the western coast, whereby a considerably 
greater length is obtained by each of these four rivers, when 
compared to the Ebro, which disembogues in the Mediter- 
ranean. 

The Moorish geographer Alrasi was the first to take diflerence 
of climate as the rule of dividing the Peninsula into distinct 
portions ; and modern authorities, carrying out this idea, have 
drawn an imaginary line, which runs north-east to south-west, 
thus separating the Peninsula into the northern, or the boreal 
and temperate, and the southern or the torrid, and subdividing 
these two into four zones : nor is this division altogether fanciful, 
for there is no caprice or mistake in tests derived from the 
vegetable world ; manners may make man, but the sun alone 
modifies the plant : man may be fused down by social appliances 
into one uniform mass, but the rude elements are not to be 
civilized, nor can nature be made cosmopolitan, which heaven 
forfend. 

The first or northern zone is the Cantabrian, the European ; 
this portion skirts the base of the Pyrenees, and includes portions 
of Catalonia, AiTagon, and Navarre, the Basque provinces, the 
Asturias, and Gallicia. This is the region of humidity, and as 
the winters are long, and the springs and autumns rainy, it 
should only be visited in the summer. It is a country of hill 
and dale, is intersected by numerous streams which abound in 
fish, and which irrigate rich meadows for pastures. The valleys 
form the now improving dairy country of Spain while the 
mountains furnish the most valuable and available timber of the 



ZONES OF SPAIN. 



Peninsula. In some parts corn will scarcely ripen, while in 
others, in addition to the cerealia, cider and an ordinary wine 
are produced. It is inhabited by a hardy, independent, and 
rarely subdued population, since the mountainous country offers 
natural means of defence to brave highlanders. It is useless to 
attempt the conquest with a small army, while a large one would 
find no means of support in the hungry localities. 

Tlie second zone is the Iberian or eastern, which, in its mari- 
time portions, is more Asiatic than European, and where the lower 
classes partake of the Greek and Carthaginian character, being 
false, cruel, and treacherous, yet lively, ingenious, and fond of 
pleasure ; this portion commences at Burgos, and includes the 
southern portion of Catalonia and Arragon, with parts of Castile, 
Valencia, and Murcia. The sea-coasts should be visited in the 
spring and autumn, when they are delicious : but they are in- 
tensely hot in the summer, and infested with myriads of mus- 
kitoes. The districts about Burgos are among the coldest in 
Spain, and the thermometer sinks very much below the ordinary 
average of our more temperate clinnate ; and as they have little 
at any time to attract the traveller, he will do well to avoid them 
except during the summer months. The population is grave, 
sober, and Castilian. The elevation is very considerable ; thus 
the upper valley of the Miiio and some of the north-western por- 
tions of old Castile and Leon are placed more than 6000 feet 
above the level of the sea, and the frosts often last for three months 
at a time. 

The third zone is the Lusitanian, or western, which is by far 
the largest, and includes the central parts of Spain and all Por- 
tugal. The interior of this portion, and especially the provinces 
of the two Castiles and La Mancha, both in the physical condition 
of the soil and the moral qualities of the inhabitants, presents a 
very unfavorable view of the Peninsula, as these inland steppes 
are burnt up by summer suns, and are tempest and wind-rent 
during winter. The general absence of trees, hedges, and en- 
closures exposes these wide unprotected plains to the rage and 
violence of the elements : poverty-stricken mud houses, scattered 
here and there in the desolate extent, afford a wretched home to 
a poor, proud, and ignorant population ; but these localities, which 



12 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

offer in themselves neither pleasure nor profit to the stranger, 
contain many sites and cities of the highest interest, which none 
who wish to understand Spain can possibly pass by unnoticed. 
The best periods for visiting this portion of Spain are May and 
June, or September and October. 

The more western districts of this Lusitanian zone are not so 
disagreeable. There in the uplands the ilex and chesnut abound, 
while the rich plains produce vast harvests of corn, and the vine- 
yards powerful red wines. The central table-land, which closely 
resembles the plateau of Mexico, forms nearly one-half of the 
entire area of the Peninsula. The peculiarity of the climate is its 
dryness ; it is not, however, unhealthy, being free from the agues 
and fevers which are prevalent in the lower plains, river-swamps, 
and rice-grounds of parts of Valencia and Andalucia. Rain, 
indeed, is so comparatively scarce on this table-land, that the 
annual quantity on an average does not amount to more than ten 
inches. The least quantity falls in the mountain regions near 
Guadalupe, and on the high plains of Cuenca and Murcia, 
where sometimes eight or nine months pass without a drop fall- 
ing. The occasional thunder-storms do but just lay the dust, 
since here moisture dries up quicker even than woman's tears. 
The face of the earth is tanned, tawny, and baked into a verit- 
able terra cotta : everything seems dead and burnt on a funeral 
pile. It is all but a miracle how the principle of life in the green 
herb is preserved, since the very grass appears scorched and 
dead ; yet when once the rains set in, vegetation springs up, 
phoenix-like, from the ashes, and bursts forth in an inconceivable 
luxuriance and life. The ripe seeds which have fallen on the 
soil are called into existence, carpeting the desert with verdure, 
gladdening the eye with flowers, and intoxicating the senses with 
perfume. The thirsty chinky dry earth drinks in these genial 
showers, and then rising like a giant refreslied with wine, puts 
forth all its strength ; and what vegetation is, where moisture is 
combined with great heat, cannot even be guessed at in lands of 
stinted suns. The periods of rains are the winter and spring, 
and when these are plentiful, all kinds of grain* and in many 
places wines, are produced in abundance. The olive, however, 
is only to be met with in a few favored localities. 



GEOGRAPHY OF SPAIN. 



The fourth zone is the Bcetican, which is the most southern and 
African ; it coasts the Mediterranean, basking at the foot of the 
mountains which rise behind and form the mass of the Peninsula : 
this mural barrier offers a sure protection against the cold winds 
which sweep across the central region. Nothing can be more 
striking than the descent from the table elevations into these 
maritime strips ; in a few hours the face of nature is completely- 
changed, and the traveller passes from the climate and vegeta- 
tion of Europe into that of Africa. This region is characterized 
by a dry burning atmosphere during a large part of the year. 
The winters are short and temperate, and consist rather in rain 
than in cold, for in the sunny valleys ice is scarcely known ex- 
cept for eating ; the springs and autumns delightful beyond all 
conception. Much of the cultivation depends on artificial irriga- 
tion, which was carried by the Moors to the highest perfection : 
indeed water, under this forcing, vivifying sun, is the blood of 
the earth, and synonymous with fertility : the pz'oductions are 
tropical ; sugar, cotton, rice, the orange, lemon, and date. The 
algarrobo, the carob tree, and the adelfa, the oleander, may be 
considered as forming boundary marks between this, the tierra 
caliente, or torrid district, and the colder regions by which it is 
encompassed. 

Such are the geographical divisions of nature with which the 
vegetable and animal productions are closely connected ; and we 
shall presently enter somewhat more fully into the climate of 
Spain, of which the natives are as proud as if they had made it 
themselves. This Boetican zone, Andalucia, which contains in 
itself many of the most interesting cities, sites, and natural 
beauties of the Peninsula, will always take precedence in any 
plan of the traveller, and each of these points has its own peculiar 
attractions. These embrace a wide range of varied scenery and 
objects ; and Andalucia, easy of access, may be gone over almost 
at every portion of the year. The winters may be spent at Cadiz, 
Seville, or Malaga ; the summers in the cool mountains of Ronda, 
Aracena, or Granada. April, May, and June, or September, 
October, and November, are, however, the most preferable. 
Those who go in the spring should reserve June for the moun- 
tains J those who go in the autumn should reverse the plan, and 



14 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

commence with Ronda and Granada, ending with Seville and 
Cadiz. 

Spain, it has thus been shown, is one mountain, or rather a 
jumble of mountains — for the principal and secondary ranges are 
all more or less connected with each other, and descend in a ser- 
pentising direction throughout the Peninsula, with a general in- 
clination to the west. Nature, by thus dislocating the country, 
seems to have suggested, nay, almost to have forced, localism and 
isolation to the inhabitants, who each in their valleys and districts 
are shut off from their neighbors, whom to love, they are enjoined 
in vain. 

The internal communication of the Peninsula, which is thus 
divided by the mountain-walls, is effected by some good roads, 
few and far between, and which are carried over the most conve- 
nient points, where the natural dips are the lowest, and the ascents 
and descents the most practicable. These passes are called Pu- 
ertos — portce,, or gates. There are, indeed, mule-tracks and goat- 
paths over other and intermediate portions of the chain, but they 
are. difficult and dangerous, and being seldom provided with ventas 
or villages, are fitter for smugglers and bandits than honest men ; 
the farthest and fairest way about will always be found the best 
and shortest road. 

The Spanish mountains in general have a dreary and harsh 
character, yet not without a certain desolate sublimity ; the high- 
est are frequently capped with snow, which glistens in the clear 
sky. They are rarely clad with forest trees ; the scarped and 
denuded ridges cut with a serrated outline the clean clear blue 
sky. The granitic masses soar above the green valley or yellow 
corn-plains in solitary state, like the castles of a feudal baron, 
that lord it over all belov/, with which they are too proud to have 
aught in common. These mountains are seen to greatest advan- 
tage at the rise and setting of the sun, for during the day the ver- 
tical rays destroy all form by removing shadows. 

These geographical peculiarities of Spain, and particularly the 
existence of the great central elevation, when once attained are 
apt to be forgotten. The country rises from the coast, directly in 
the north-western provinces, and in some of the southern and 
eastern, with an intervening alluvial strip and swell ; but when 



THE PYRENEES. 



once the ascent is accomplished, no real descent ever takes place 
— we are then on the summit of a vast elevated mass. The roads 
indeed ap'parenily ascend and descend, but the mean height is 
seldom diminished : the interior hills or plains are undulations of 
one mountain. The traveller is often deceived at the apparent 
low level of snow-clad ranges, such as the Guadarrama ; this will 
be accounted for by adding the great elevation of their bases 
above the level of the sea. The palace of the Escorial, which is 
placed at the foot of the Guadarrama, and at the head of a seem- 
ing plain, stands in reality at 272.5 feet above Valencia, while the 
summer residence of the king at ha Granja, in the same chain, is 
thirty feet higher than the summit of Vesuvius. This, indeed, is 
a castle in the air — a chateau en Espagne, and worthy of the 
most German potentate to whom that element belongs, as the sea 
does to Britannia, The mean temperature on the plateau of 
Spain is as 15° Reaumur, while thatof the coast is as 18° and 19°, 
in addition to the protection from cutting winds which their moun- 
tainous backgrounds afford ; nor is the traveller less deceived as 
regards the heights of the interior mountains than he is with the 
champaigns or table-land plains. The eye wanders over a vast 
level extent bounded only by the horizon, or a faint blue line of 
other distant sierras ; this space, which appears one townless level, 
is intersected with deep ravines, iarrancos, in which villages lie 
concealed, and streams, arroyos, flow uuperceived. Another im- 
portant effect of this central elevation is the searching dryness and 
rarification of the air. It is often highly prejudicial to strangers ; 
the least exposure, which is very tempting under a burning sun, 
will often bring on ophthalmia, irritable colics, and inflammatory 
diseases of the lungs and vital organs. Such are the causes of 
the puhiionia, which carries off the invalid in a few days, and is 
the disease of Madrid. The frozen blasts descending from the 
snow-clad Guadarrama catch the incautious passenger at the turn- 
ing of streets which are roasting under a fierce sun. Is it to be 
wondered at, that this capital should be so very insalubrious ? in 
winter you are frozen alive, in summer baked. A man taking a 
walk for the benefit of his health, crosses with his pores open from 
an oven to an ice-house ; catch-cold introduces the Spanish doc- 
tor, who soon in his turn presents the undertaker. 



16 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

As the Pyrenees possess an European interest at this moment, 
when the Napoleon of Peace proposes to annihilate their existence, 
which defied Louis XIV. and Buonaparte, some details may not 
be unacceptable. This gigantic barrier, which divides Spain and 
France, is connected with the dorsal chain which comes down 
from Tartary and Asia. It stretches far beyond the transversal 
spine, for the mountains of the Basque Provinces, Asturias and 
Gallicia, are its continuation. The Pyrenees, properly speaking, 
extend E. to W., in length about 270 miles, being both broadest 
and highest in the central portions, where the width is about 60 
miles, and the elevations exceed 11,000 feet. The spurs and 
offsets of this great transversal spine penetrate on both sides into 
the lateral valleys like ribs from a back-bone. The central nuo- 
leus slopes gradually E. to the gentle Mediterranean, and W. to 
the fierce Atlantic, in a long uneven swell. 

This range of mountains was called by the Romans Monies 
and Saltus Pyrenei, and by the Greeks IIv^ip'i], probably from a 
local Iberian word, but which they, as usual, catching at sound, 
not sense, connected with their Uvo, and then bolstered up their 
erroneous derivation by a legend framed to fit the name, assert- 
ing that it either alluded to a fire through which certain precious 
metals were discovered, or because the lofty summits were often 
struck with lightning, and dislocated by the volcanos. Accord- 
ing to the Iberians, Hercules, when on his way to " lift" Ger- 
yon's cattle, was hospitably received by Bebryx, a petty ruler 
in these mountains ; whereupon the demigod got drunk, and rav- 
ished his host's daughter Pyrene, who died of grief, when Her- 
cules, sad and sober, made the whole range re-echo with her 
name ; a legend which, like some others in Spain, requires con- 
firmation, for the Phoenicians called these ranges Purani from the 
forests, Pura meaning wood in Hebrew. The Basques have, of 
course, their etymology, some saying that the real root is Bin, an 
elevation, while others prefer jBiem enac, the "two countries," 
which, separated by the range, were ruled by Tubal ; but 
when Spaniards once begin with Tubal, the best plan is to shut 
the book. 

The Maledeta is the loftiest peak, although the Pico del Me- 
diodia and the Canigii, because rising at once out of plains and 



THE GABACHO. 



therefore having the greatest apparent altitudes, were long con- 
sidered to be the highest ; but now these French usurpers are 
dethroned. Seen from a distance, the range appears to be one 
mountain-ridge, with broken pinnacles, but, in fact, it consists of 
two distinct lines, which are parallel, but not continuous. The 
one which commences at the ocean is the most forward, being at 
least 30 miles more in advance towards the south than the cor- 
responding line, which commences from the Mediterranean. The 
centre is the point of dislocation, and here the ramifications and 
reticulations are the most intricate, as it is the key-stone of the 
sysHfem, which is buttressed up by Las Tres Sorellas, the three 
sisters Monte Perdido, Cylindro, and Marhore. Here is the 
source of the Garonne, La Garono ; here the scenery is the 
grandest, and the lateral valleys the longest and widest. The 
smaller spurs enclose valleys, down each of which pours a 
stream : thus the Ebro, Garona, and Bidasoa ai'e fed from the 
mountain source. These tributaries are generally called in 
France Gaves,* and in some parts on the Spanish side Gabas ; 
but Gav signifies a " river," and may be traced in our Avon ; 
and Humboldt derives it from the Basque Gav, a " hollow or 

* The word Gahaoho^ which is the most offensive vitui^erative of the 
Spaniard against the Frenchman, and has by some been thought to mean 
" those who dwell on Gaves," is the Arabic Cabach^ detestable, filthy, or, " qui 
prava indole est, moribusque." In fact the real meaning cannot be further 
alluded to beyond referring to the clever tale of El Frances y Espaiiol, by 
duevedo. The antipathy to the Gaul is natural and national, and dates far 
beyond history. This nickname was first given in the eighth century, when 
Charlemagne, the Buonaparte of his day, invaded Spain, on the abdication 
and cession of the crown by the chaste Alonso, the prototype of the wittol 
Charles IV. : then the Spanish Moors and Christians, foes and friends, for- 
got their hatreds of creeds in the greater loathing for the abhorred intruder, 
whose " peerage fell " in the memorable passes of Roncesvalles. The true 
derivation of the word Gabacho^ which now resounds from these Pyrenees to 
the Straits, is blinked in the royal academical dictionary, such was the ser- 
vile adulation of the members to their French patron Philip V. Mueraii 
los Gabachos, " Death to the miscreants," was the rally cry of Spain after 
the inhuman butcheries of the terrorist Murat ; nor have the echoes died 
awUy ; a spark may kindle the prepared mine : of what an unspeakable value 
is a national war-cry which at once gives to a whole people a shibboleth, a 
rallying watch- word to a common cause ! Vox populi vox Dei. 



18 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

ravine ;" cavus. The parting of these waters, or their flowing 
down either N. or S., should naturally mark the line of division 
between France and Spain : such, however, is not the case, as 
part of Cerdana belongs to France, while Aran belongs to Spain ; 
thus each country possesses a key in its neighbor's territory. It 
is singular that this obvious inconvenience should not have been 
remedied by some exchange when the long disputed boundary, 
question was settled between Charles IV. and the French re- 
»public. 

Most of the passes over this Alpine barrier are impracticable 
for carriages, and remain much in the same state as in the time 
of the Moors, who from them called the Pyrenean range ATbori, 
from the Roman PortcB, the ridge of " gates." Many of the wild 
passes are only known to the natives and smuggler.s, and are 
often impracticable from the snow ; while even in summer they 
are dangerous, being exposed to mists and the hurricanes of 
mighty rushing winds. The two best carriageable lines of inter- 
communication are placed at each extremity : that to the west 
passes through Irun ; that to the east through Figueras. 

The Spanish Pyrenees offer fev/ attractions to the lovers of 
the fleshly comforts of cities ; but the scenery, sporting, geology, 
and botany are truly Alpine, and will -well repay those who can 
" rough it " considerably. The contrast which the unfrequented 
Spanish side offers to the crowded opposite one is great. In Spain 
the mountains themselves are less abrupt, less covered with snow, 
while the numerous and much frequented baths in the French 
Pyrenees have created roads, diligences, hotels, tables-d'hote, 
cooks, Ciceronis, donkeys, and so forth ; for the Badauds de 
Paris who babble about green fields and des belles horreurs, but 
who seldom go beyond the immediate vicinity and hackneyed 
" lions." A want of good taste and real perception of the sublime 
and beautiful is nowhere more striking, says Mr. Erskine Mur- 
ray, than on the French side, where mankind remains profoundly 
lignorant of the real beauties of the Pyrenees, which have been 
'chiefly explored by the English, who love nature with all their 
jheart and soul, who worship her alike in her shyest retreats and 
in her wildest forms. Nevertheless, on the north side many com- 
I forts and appliances for the tourist are to be had j nay, invalids 



FRENCH POLICY. 



and ladies in search of the picturesque can ascend to the Brdche 
de Roland. Once, however, cross the frontier, and a sudden 
change comes over all facilities of locomotion. Stern is the first 
welcome of the "hard land of Iberia," scarce is the food for body 
or mind, and deficient the accommodation for man or beast, and 
simply because there is small demand for either. No Spaniard 
ever comes here for pleasure ; hence the localities are given up 
to the smuggler and izard. 

The Oriental insesthetic iucuriousness for things, old stones, 
wild scenery, &c., is increased by political reasons and fear. The 
neighbor, from the time of the Celt down to to-day, has ever been 
the coveter, ravager, and terror of Spain : her " knavish tricks," 
fire and rapine are too numerous to be blinked or written away, 
too atrocious to be forgiven : to revenge becomes a sacred duty. 
However governments may change, the policy of France is im- 
mutable. Perfidy, backed by violence, " ruse doublee de force," 
is the state maxim from Louis XIV. and Buonaparte down to 
Louis-Philippe : the principle is the same, whether the instru- 
ment employed be the sword or wedding ring. The weaker Spain 
is thus linked in the embrace of her stronger neighbor, and has 
been made alternately her dupe and victim, and degraded into 
becoming a mere satellite, to be dragged along by fiery Mars. 
France has forced her to share all her bad fortune, but never has 
permitted her to participate in her success. Spain has been tied 
to the car of her defeats, but never has been allowed to mount it in 
the day of triumph. Her friendship has always tended to dena- 
tionalize Spain, and by entailing the forced enmity of England, 
has caused to her the loss of her navies and colonies in the new 
world. 

" The Pyrenean boundary," says the Duke of Wellington, " is 
the most vulnerable frontier of France, probably the only vulne- 
rable one ;" accordingly she has always endeavored to dismantle 
the Spanish defences and to foster insurrections and pronunciami- 
enios in Catalonia, for Spain's infirmity is her opportunity, and 
therefore the " sound policy" of the rest of Europe is to see Spain 
strong, independent, and able to hold her own Pyrenean key. 

While France, therefore, has improved her means of approach 
and invasion, Spain, to whom the past is prophetic of the future. 



20 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

has raised obstacles, and has left her protecting barrier as broken 
and hungry as when planned by her tutelar divinity. Nor are 
her highlanders more practicable than their granite fastnesses. 
Here dwell the smuggler, the rifle sportsman, and all who defy 
the law : here is bred the hardy peasant, who, accustomed to 
scale mountains and fight wolves, becomes a ready raw material 
for the guerrilleros, and none were ever more formidable to Rome 
or France than those marshalled in these glens by Sertorius and 
Mina. When the tocsin bell rings out, a hornet swarm of armed 
men, the weed of the hills, starts up from every rock and brake. 
The hatred of the Frenchman, which the Duke said formed " part 
of a Spaniard's nature," seems to increase in intensity in propor- 
tion to vicinity, for as they touch, so they fret and rub each other : 
here it is the antipathy of an antithesis ; the incompatibility of 
the saturnine and slow with the mercurial and rapid ; of the 
proud, enduring, and ascetic against the vain, the fickle, and sen- 
sual ; of the enemy of innovation and change, to the lover of 
variety and novelty ; and however tyrants and tricksters may 
assert in the gilded galleries of Versailles that // n'y a plus de 
Pyrenees, this party-wall of Alps, this barrier of snow and hurri- 
cane, does and will exist for ever ; placed there by Providence, 
as was said by the Gothic prelate Saint Isidore, they ever have 
forbidden and ever will forbid the banns of an unnatural alliance, 
as in the days of Silius Italicus : 

" Pyrene celsa. nimbosi verticis arce 
Divisos Celtis late prospectat Hiberos 
Atque ffiterna tenet magnis divortia terris." 

If the eagle of Buonaparte could never build in the Arragonese 
Sierra, the lily of the Bourbon assuredly will not take root in the 
Castilian plain ; so sings Ariosto : * 

" Che noD lice 

Che '1 giglio in quel terreno habbia radice !" 

This inveterate condition either of pronounced hostility, or at 
best of armed neutrality, has long rendered these localities dis- 
agreeable to the man of the,; note-book. The rugged mountain 
frontiers consist of a series of secluded districts, which constitute 
the entire world to the natives, who seldom go beyond the natural 



\ 



THE PYRENEES. 



walls by which they are bounded, except to smuggle. This vo- 
cation is the curse of the country ; ii fosters a wild reliance on 
self-defence, a habit of border foray and insurrection, which seems 
as necessary to them as a moral excitement and combustible ele- 
ment, as carbon and hydrogen are in their physical bodies. Their 
habitual suspicion against prying foreigners, which is an Oriental 
and Iberian instinct, converts a curious traveller into a spy or 
partisan. Spanish authorities, who seldom do these things except 
on compulsion, cannot understand the gratuitous braving of hard- 
ship and danger for its own sake — the botanizing and geologizing, 
&c., of the nature and adventure-loving English. The iinperii- 
nente curioso may possibly escape observation in a Spanish city 
and crowd, but in these lonely hills it is out of the question : he 
is the observed of all observers ; and they, from long smuggling 
and sporting habits, are always on the look-out, and are keen- 
sighted as hawks, gipseys, and beasts of prey. Latterly some, 
who, by being placed immediately under the French boundary, 
have seen the glitter of our tourists' coin, have become more hu- 
manized, and anxious to obtain a share in the profits of the season. 
The geology and botany have yet to be properly investigated. 
In the metal-pregnant Pyrenees rude forges of iron abound, but 
every thing is conducted on a small, unscientific scale, and pro- 
bably after the unchanged primitive Iberian system. Fuel is 
scarce, and transport of ores on muleback expensive. The iron 
is at once inferior to the English and much dearer : the tools 
and implements used on both sides of the Pyrenees are at least a 
century behind ours ; while absurd tariffs, which prevent the 
Importation of a cheaper and better article, retard improve- 
ments in agriculture and manufactures, and perpetuate poverty 
and ignorance among backward, half-civilized populations. The 
timber, moreover, has suffered much from the usual neglect, 
waste and improvidence of the natives, who destroy more than 
they consume, and never replant. The sporting in these lonely 
wild districts is excellent, for where man seldom penetrates the 
ferae naturse multiply : the bear is, however, getting scarce, as a 
premium is placed on every head destroyed. The grand object is 
the Cabra Montanez, or Rupicapra, German Steinbock, the 
Bouquetin of the French, the Izard (Ibex, becco, bouc, bock, 



22 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

buck). The fascination of this pursuit, like that of the Chamois 
in Switzerland, leads to constant and even fatal accidents, as this 
shy animal lurks in almost inaccessible localities, and must be 
stalked with the nicest skill. The sporting on the north side is 
far inferior, as the cooks of the table-d'hotes have waged a guerra 
al cucMllo, a war to the knife, and fork too, against even Us 
petits oiseaux ; but your French artiste persecutes even minnows, 
as all sport and fair play is scouted, and everything gives way 
for the pot. The Spaniards, less mechanical and gastronomic, 
leave the feathered and finny tribes in comparative peace. Ac- 
cordingly the streams abound with trout, and those which flow into 
the Atlantic with salmon. The lofty Pyrenees are not only alem- 
bics of cool crystal streams, but contain, like the heart of Sappho, 
sources of warm springs under a bosom of snow. The most 
celebrated issue on the north side, or at least those which are the 
most known and frequented, for the Spaniard is a small bather, 
and no great drinker of medical waters. Accommodations at 
the baths on this side scarcely exist, while even those in France 
are paltry when compared to the spas of Germany, and dirty and 
indecent when contrasted with those of England. The scenery 
is alpine, a jumble of mountain, precipice, glacier, and forest, 
enlivened by the cataract or hurricane. The natives, when not 
smugglers or guerrilleros, are rude, simple, and pastoral : they 
are poor and picturesque, as people are who dwell in mountains. 
Plains which produce " bread-stuffs" may be richer, but what 
can a traveller or painter do with their monotonous commonplace ? 
In these wild tracts the highlanders in summer lead their 
flocks up to mountain huts and dwell with their cattle, strug- 
gling against poverty and wild beasts, and endeavoring really to 
keep the wolf from the door ; their watch-dogs are magnificent ; 
the sheep are under admirable control — being, as it were, in the 
presence of the enemy, they know the voice of their shepherds, or 
rather the peculiar whistle and cry : their wool is largely smug- 
gled into France, and when manufactured in the shape of coarse 
cloth is then re-smuggled back again. 



THE RIVERS OF SPAIN. 23 



CHAPTER III. 

The Rivers of Spain — Bridges — Navigation — The Ebro and Tagus. 

There are six great rivers in Spain, — the arteries whicli run 
betw^een the seven mountain chains, the vertebrse of the geologi- 
cal skeleton. These water-sheds are each intersected in their 
extent by others on a minor scale, by valleys and indentations, in 
each of which runs its own stream. Thus the rains and melted 
snows are all collected in an infinity of ramifications, and are car- 
ried by these tributary conduits into one of the main trunks, 
which all, with the exception of the Ebro, empty themselves into 
the Atlantic. The Duero and Tagus, unfortunately for Spain, 
disembogue in Portugal, and thus become a portion of a foreign 
dominion exactly where their commercial importance is the great- 
est. Philip II. saw the true value of the possession of an angle 
which rounded Spain, and insured to her the possession of these 
valuable outlets of internal produce, and inlets for external com- 
merce. Portugal annexed to Spain gave more real power to his 
throne than the dominion of entire continents across the Atlantic, 
and is the secret object of every Spanish government's ambition. 
The Miiio, which is the shortest of these rivers, runs through a 
bosom of fertility. The Tajo, Tagus, which the fancy of poets 
has sanded with gold and embanked with roses, tracks much of 
its dreary way through rocks and comparative barrenness. The 
Chiadiana creeps through lonely Estremadura, infecting the low 
plains with miasma. The Guadalquivir eats out its deep banks 
amid the sunny olive-clad regions of Andalucia, as the Ebro 
divides the levels of Arragon. Spain abounds with brackish 
streams, Salados, and with salt-mines, or saline deposits after the 
evaporation of the sea- waters ; indeed, the soil of the central por- 
tions is so strongly impregnated with " villainous saltpetre," that 
the small province of La Mancha alone could furnish materials 



24 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

to blow up the world ; the surface of these regions, always arid, 
is every day becoming more so, from the singular antipathy 
which the inhabitants of the interior have against trees. There 
is nothing to check the power of rapid evaporation, no shelter to 
protect or preserve moisture. The soil becomes more and more 
parched and dried up, insomuch that in some parts it has almost 
ceased to be available for cultivation : another serious evil, which 
arises from want of plantations, is, that the slopes of hills are 
everywhere liable to constant denudation of soil after heavy- 
rain. There is nothing to break the descent of the water ; hence 
the naked, barren stone summits of many of the sierras, which 
have been pared and peeled of every particle capable of nourish- 
ing vegetation : they are skeletons where life is extinct ; not only 
is the soil thus lost, but the detritus washed down either forms 
bars at the mouths of rivers, or chokes up and raises their beds ; 
they are thus rendered liable to overflow their banks, and convert 
the adjoining plains into pestilential swamps. The supply of 
water, which is affbi'ded by periodical rains, and which ought to 
support the reservoirs of rivers, is carried off at once in violent 
floods, rather than in a gentle gradual disembocation. From its 
mountainous character Spain has very few lakes, as the fall is 
too considerable to allow water to accumulate ; the exceptions 
which do exist might with greater propriety be termed lochs — not 
that they are to be compared in size or beauty to some of those in 
Scotland. The volume in the principal rivers of Spain has di- 
minished, and is diminishing ; thus some which once were navi- 
gable, are so no longer, while the artificial canals which were to 
have been substituted remain unfinished : the progress of deterior- 
ation advances, while little is done to counteract or amend what 
every year must render more difficult and expensive, while the 
means of repair and correction will diminish in equal proportion, 
from the poverty occasioned by the evil, and by the fearful extent 
which it will be allowed to attain. However, several grand water- 
companies have been lately formed, who are to dig Artesian wells, 
finish canals, navigate rivers with steamers, and issue shares at 
a premium, which will be effected if nothing else is. 

Tiie rivers which are really adapted to navigation are, however, 
only those which are pe^rpetually fed by those tributary streams 



SPANISH BRIDGES. 25 

that flow down from mountains which are covered with snow 
all the year, and these are not many. The majority of Spanish 
rivers are very scanty of water during the summer time, and 
very rapid in their flow when filled by rains or melting snow : 
during these periods they are impracticable for boats. They 
are, moi'eover, much exhausted by being drained off", sangrado — 
that is, bled, for the purposes of artificial irrigation ; thus, at 
Madrid and Valencia, the wide beds of the Manzanares and 
the Turia are frequently dry as the sands of the seashore when 
the tide is out. They seem only to be entitled to be called rivers 
by courtesy, because they have so many and such splendid 
bridges ; as numerous are the jokes cut by the newly-arrived 
stranger, who advises the townsfolk to sell one of them to pur- 
chase water, or compares their thirsting arches to the rich man in 
torments, who prays for one drop ; but a heavy rain in the moun- 
tains soon shows the necessity for their strength and length, for 
their wide and lofty arches, their buttress-like piers, which be- 
fore had appeared to be rather the freaks of architectural mag- 
nificence than the works of public utility. Those who live in a 
comparatively level country can scarcely form an idea of the 
rapidity and fearful destruction of the river inundations in this 
land of mountains. The deluge rolls forth in an avalanche, the 
rising water coming down tier above tier like a flight of steps 
let loose. These tides carry everything before them — scarring 
and gullying up the earth, tearing down rocks, trees, and houses, 
and strewing far and wide the relics of ruin ; but the fierce fury 
is short-lived, and is spent in its own violence ; thus the traveller 
at Madrid, if he wishes to see its Thames, should run down or 
take the 'bus as he can, when it rains, or the river will be gone 
before he gets there. When the Spaniards, under those block- 
heads Blake and Cuesta, lost the battle of Rio Seco, which gave 
Madrid to Buonaparte, the French soldiers, in crossing the dry 
river bed in pursuit of the fugitives, exclaimed — " Why, Spanish 
rivers run away too !" 

Many of these beds serve in remote districts, where highways 
and bridges are thought to be superfluous luxuries, for the double 
purposes of a river when there is water in them, and as a road 
when there is not. Again, in this land of anomalies, some 

PART I. 3 



26 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

streams have no bridges, while other bridges have no streams ; 
the most remarkable of these po7ite^ asinorum is at Coria, where 
the Alagon is crossed at an inconvenient, and often dangerous 
ferry, while a noble bridge of five arches stands high and dry in 
tlie meadows close by. This has arisen from the river having 
quitted its old channel in some inundation ; or, as Spaniards say, 
salido de su madre, gone out from its mother, who does not seem 
to know that it is out, or certainly does not care, since no steps 
have ever been taken by the Corians to coax it back again under 
its old arches ; the)?^ call on Hercules to turn this Alpheus, and 
rely in the meantime on their proverb, that all fickle, unfaithful 
rivers repent and return to their legitimate beds after a thousand 
years, for nothing is hurried in Spain, Despues de anos mil, vuelve 
el rio a su cuhil. On the fishing in these wandering streams we 
shall presently say something. 

The navigation of Spanish rivers is Oriental, classical, and im- 
perfect ; the boats, barges, and bargemen carry one back beyond 
the mediaeval ages, and are better calculated for artistical than 
commercial purposes. The " great river," the Guadalquivir, 
which was navigable»in the time of the Romans as far as Cor- 
dova, is now scarcely practicable for sailing-vessels of a mode- 
rate size even up to Seville. Passengers, however, have facilities 
afforded them by the steamers which run backwards and for- 
wards between this capital and Cadiz ; these conveniences, it 
need not be said, were introduced from England, although the 
first steamer that ever paddled in waters was of Spanish inven- 
tion, and was launched at Barcelona in 1543 ; but the Spanish 
Chancellor of the Exchequer of the time was a poor red tapist, 
and opposed the whole thing, which, as usual, fell to the ground. 
The steamers on the Guadalquivir are safe ; indeed, in our times, 
the advertisements always stated that a mass was said before 
starting in the heretical contrivance, just as to this day Birming- 
ham locomotives, when a railway is first opened in France, are 
sprinkled with holy water, and blessed by a bishop, which may be 
a new " wrinkle" to Mr. Hudson and the primate of York. 

There is considerable talk in Arragon about rendering the 
Ebro navigable, and it has been surveyed this year, by two en- 
gineers — English of course. The local neAvspapei's compared 



THE TAGUS. 27 



the astonishment of the herns and peasantry, created on the banks 
by this arrival, as second only to that occasioned when Don 
Quixote and Sancho ventured near the same spot into the en- 
chanted bark. 

There has been still older and greater talk about establishing 
a water communication between Lisbon and Toledo, by means of 
the Tagus. This mighty river, which is in every body's mouth, 
because the capital of the kingdom of Port wine is placed at its 
embouchure, is in fact almost as little known in Spain and out 
of it, as the Niger. It has been our fate to behold it in many 
places and various phases of its most poetical and picturesque 
course — first green and arrowy amid the yellow cornfields of 
New Castile ; then freshening the sweet Tempe of Aranjuez, 
clothing the gardens with verdure, and filling the nightingale- 
tenanted glens with groves ; then boiling and rushing around 
the granite ravines of rock-built Toledo, hurrying to escape from 
the cold shadows of its deep prison, and dashing joyously into 
light and liberty, to wander far away into silent plains, and on 
to Talavera, where its waters were dyed with brave blood, and 
gladly reflected the flash of the victorious bayonets of England, 
— triumphantly it rolls thence, under the shattered arches of 
Almaraz, down to desolate Estremadura, in a stream as tranquil 
as the azure sky by which it is curtained, yet powerful enough to 
force the mountains at Alcantara. There the bridge of Trajan 
is worth going a hundred miles to see ; it stems the now fierce 
condensed stream, and ties the rocky gorges together ; grand, 
simple, and solid, tinted by the tender colors of seventeen centu- 
ries, it looms like the grey skeleton of Roman power, with all the 
sentiment of loneliness, magnitude, and the interest of the past and 
present. Such are the glorious scenes we have beheld and sketch- 
ed ; such are the sweet waters in which we have refreshed our 
dusty and weary limbs. 

How stern, solemn, and striking is this Tagus of Spain ! No 
commerce has ever made it its highway — no English steamer has 
ever civilized its waters like those of France and Germany. Its 
rocks have witnessed battles, not peace ; have reflected castles 
and dungeons, not quays or warehouses : few cities have risen on 
its banks, as on those of the Thames and Rhine j it is truly a 



28 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

river of Spain — that isolated and solitary land. Its waters are 
without boats, its banks without life ; man has never laid his hand 
upon its billows, nor enslaved their free and independent gambols. 
It is impossible to read Tom Campbell's admirable description 
of the Danube before its poetry was discharged by the smoke of 
our ubiquitous countrymen's Dampf Schifif, without applying his 
lines to this uncivilized Tagus : — 

" Yet have I loved thy ■wild abode, 

Unknown, unploughed, untrodden shore, 
Where scarce the woodman finds a road, 

And scarce the fisher plies an oar ; 
For man's neglect I love thee more, 

That art nor avarice intrude 
To tame thy torrent's thunder shock, 
Or pi'une the vintage of thy rock, 
Magnificently rude !" 

As rivers in a state of nature are somewhat scarce in Great 
Britain, one more extract may be perhaps pardoned, and the more 
as it tends to illustrate Spanish character, and explain las cosas de 
Espana, or the things of Spain, which it is the object of these hum- 
ble pages to accomplish. 

The Tagus rises in that extraordinary jumble of mountains, 
full of fossil bones, botany, and trout, that rise between Cuenca 
and Teruel, and which being all but unknown, clamor loudly for 
the disciples of Isaac Walton and Dr. Buckland. It disembogues 
into the sea at Lisbon, having flowed 375 miles in Spain, of which 
nature destined it to be the aorta. The Toledan chroniclers 
deme the name from Tagus, fifth king of Iberia, but Bochart 
traces it to Dag, Dagon, a fish, as besides being considered au- 
riferous, the ancients pronounced it to be piscatory. Not that 
the present Spaniards trouble their head more about the fishes 
here than if they were crocodiles. Grains of gold are indeed 
found, but barely enough to support a poet, by amphibious pau- 
pers, called artesilleros from their baskets, in which they collect 
the sand, which is passed through a sieve. 

The Tagus might easily be made navigable to the sea, and 
then with the Xarama connect Madrid and Lisbon, and facilitate 
importation of colonial produce, and exportation of wine and 



NAVIGATION OF THE TAGUS. 



grain. Such an act vvould confer more benefits upon Spain than 
ten thousand charters or paper constitutions, guaranteed by the 
sword of Narvaez, or the word and honor of Louis-Philippe. 
The performance has been contemplated by manj foreigners, the 
Toledans looking lazily on ; thus in 1581, Antonelli, a Neapo- 
litan, and Juanelo Turriano, a Milanese, suggested the scheme 
to Philip II., then master of Portugal ; but money was wanting 
— the old story — for his revenues were wasted in relic-removing 
and in building the useless Escorial, and nothing was made except 
water parties, and odes to the " wise and great king" who was to 
perform the deed, to the tune of Macbeth's witches, " Til do, 
ril do, ril do," for here the future is preferred to the present 
tense. The project dozed until 1641, when two other foreigners, 
Julio Martelli and Luigi Carduchi, in vain roused Philip IV. 
from his siesta, who soon after losing Portugal itself, forthwith 
forgot the Tagus. Another century glided away, when in 1755 
Richard Wall, an Irishman, took the thing up ; but Charles III., 
busy in waging French wars against England, wanted cash. 
The Tagus has ever since, as it roared over its rocky bed, like an 
unbroken barb, laughed at the Toledan who dreamily angles for 
impossibilities on the bank, invoking Brunei, Hercules, and 
Rothschild, instead of putting his own shoulder to the water- 
wheel. In 1808 the scheme was revived: F"- Xavier de Ca- 
banas, Avho had studied in England our system of canals, pub- 
lished a survey of the v/hole river; this folio ' Memoria sohre la 
Navigacion del Tajo,' or, ' Memoir on the Navigation of the 
Tagus,' Madrid, 1829, reads like the blue book of one dis- 
covering the source of the Nile, so desert-like are the unpeopled, 
uncultivated districts between Toledo and Abrantes. Ferd. VII. 
thereupon issued an approving paper decree, and so there the thing 
ended, although Cabanas had engaged with Messrs. Wallis and 
Mason for the machinery, &c. Recently the project has been re- 
newed by Seiior Bermudez de Castro, an intelligent gentleman, 
who, from long residence in England, has imbibed the schemes 
and energy of the foreigner. Veremos ! " we shall see ;" for hope 
is a good breakfast but a bad supper, says Bacon ; and in Spain 
things are begun late in the day, and never finished ; so at least 
says the proverb : — En Espana se empieza tarde, y se acaia nunca. 



THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 



CHAPTER IV. 

Divisions into Provinces — Ancient Demarcations — Modern Departments — 
Population — Revenue — Spanish. Stoclis. 

In the divisions of the Peninsula which are effected by moun- 
tains, rivers, and climate, a leading principle is to be traced 
throughout, for it is laid down by the unerring hand of nature. 
The artificial, political, and conventional arrangement into king- 
doms and provinces is entirely the work of accident and absence 
of design. 

These provincial divisions were formed by the gradual union 
of many smaller and previously independent portions, which have 
been taken into Spain as a whole, just as our inconvenient coun- 
ties constitute the kingdom of England ; for the inconveniences 
of these results of the ebb and flow of the different tides in the 
affairs of man's dominion — these boundaries not fixed by the lines 
and rules of theodolite-armed land surveyors, use had provided 
remedies, and long habit had reconciled the inhabitants to divis- 
ions which suited them better than any new arrangement, how- 
ever scientifically calculated, according to statistical and geo- 
graphical principles. 

The French during their intrusive rule, were horrified at this 
" chaos administratif," this apparent irregularity, and introduced 
their own system of d^partements, by which districts were neatly 
squared out and people re-arranged, as if Spain were a chess- 
board and Spaniards mere pawns — peones, or footmen, which this 
people, calling itself one of caballeros, that is riders on horses par 
excellence, assuredly is not : nor, indeed, in this paradise of the 
church militant, can the moves of any Spanish bishop or knight 
be calculated on with mathematical certainty, since they seldom 
will take the steps lo-morrow which they did yesterday. 

Accordingly, however specious the theory, it was found to be 



PROVINCES. 



no easy matter to carry departementalization out in practice : indi- 
viduality laughs at the solemn nonsense of in-door pedants, who 
would class men like ferns or shells. The failure in this attempt 
to remodel ancient demarcations and recombine antipathetic popu- 
lations was utter and complete. No sooner, therefore, had the 
Duke cleared the Peninsula of doptrinaires and invaders than the 
Lion of Castile shook off their papers from his mane, and reverted 
like the Italian, on whom the same experiment was tried, to his 
own pre-existing divisions, which, however defective in theory, 
and unsightly and inconvenient on the map, had from long habit 
been found practically to suit better. Recently, in spite of this 
experience among other newfangled transpyrenean reforms, inno- 
vations, and botherations, the Peninsula has again been parcelled 
out into forty-nine provinces, instead of the former national divis- 
ions of thirteen kingdoms, principalities, and lordships ; but long 
will it be before these deeply impressed divisions, which have 
grown with the growth of the monarchy, and are engraved in the 
retentive memories of the people, can be effaced. 

Those who are curious in statistical details are referred to the 
works of Paez, Antillon, and others, who are considered by Span- 
iards to be authorities on vast subjects, which are fitter for a gaz- 
etteer or a handbook than for volumes destined like these for 
lighter reading ; and assuredly the pages of the respectable Span- 
iards just named are duller than the high-roads of Castile, which 
no tiny rivulet the cheerful companion of the dusty road ever 
freshens, no stray flower adorns, no song of birds gladdens — " dry 
as the r mainder of the biscuit after the voyage." 

The thirteen divisions have grand and historical names ; they 
belong to an old and monarchical country, not to a spick and span 
vulgar democracy, without title-deeds. They fill the mouth when 
namedj and conjure up a thousand recollections of the better and 
more glorious times of Spain's palmy power, when there were 
giants in the land, not pigmies in Parisian paletots, whose only 
ambition is to ape the foreigner, and disgrace and denationalize 
themselves. 

First and foremost Andalucia presents herself, crowned with a 
quadruple, not a triple tiara, for the name los cuatro reinos, " the 
four kingdoms," is her synonym. They consist of those of Se- 



32 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

ville, Cordova, Jaen, and Granada. There is magic and birdlime 
in the very letters. Secondly advances the kingdom of Murcia, 
vi^ith its silver-mines, barilla and palms. Then the gentle king- 
dom of Valencia appears, all smiles, with fruits and silk. The 
principality of grim and truculent Catalonia scowls next on its 
fair neighbor. Here rises the smoky factory chimney; here 
cotton is spun, vice and discontent bred, and revolutions con- 
cocted. The proud and stifl'-necked kingdom of Arragon marches 
to the west with this Lancashire of Spain, and to the east with 
the kingdom of Navarre, which crouches with its green valleys 
under the Pyrenees. The three Basque Provinces which abut 
thereto, are only called El Senorio, " The Lordship," for the 
king of all the Spains is but simple lord of this free highland 
home of the unconquered descendants of the aboriginal man of 
the Peninsula. Here there is much talk of bullocks and fueros, 
or "privileges;" for when not digging and delving, these gentle- 
men by the mere fact of being born here, are fighting and up- 
holding their good rights by the sword. The empire province of 
the Castiles furnishes two coronets to the royal brow ; to wit, that 
of the older portion, where the young monarchy was nursed, and 
that of the newer portion, which was wrested afterwards from the 
infidel Moor. The ninth division is desolate Estremadura, which 
has no higher title than a province, and is peopled by locusts, 
wandering sheep, pigs, and here and there by human bipeds. 
Leon, a most time-honored kingdom, stretches higher up, with its 
corn-plains and venerable cities, now silent as tombs, but in auld 
lang syne the scenes of mediceval chivalry and romance. The 
kingdom of Gajlicia and the principality of the Asiurias form the 
seaboard to the west, and constitute Spain's breakwater against 
the Atlantic. 

It is not very easy to ascertain the exact population of any 
country, much less that of one which does not yet possess the 
advantages of public registrars ; the people at large, for whom, 
strange to say, the pleasant studies of statistical and political 
economy have small charms, consider any attempt to number 
them as boding no good ; they have a well-grounded apprehension 
of ulterior objects. To "number the people " was a crime in 
the East, and many moral and practical difficulties exist in arri- 



POPULATION. 33 



ving at a true census of Spain. Thus, while some writers on 
statistics hope to flatter the powers that be, by a glowing exagger- 
ation of national strength, " to boast of which," says the Duke, 
" is the national weakness," the suspicious many, on the other 
hand, are disposed to conceal and diminish the truth. We should 
be always on our guard when we hear accounts of the past or 
present population, commerce, or revenue of Spain. The better 
classes will magnify them both, for the credit of their country ; 
the poorer, on the other hand, will appeal ad misericordiam, by 
representing matters as even worse than they really are. They 
never afford any opening, however indirect, to information which 
may lead to poll-taxes and conscriptions. 

The population and the revenue have generally been exagge- 
rated, and all statements may be much discounted ; the present 
population, at an approximate calculation, may be taken at about 
eleven or twelve millions, with a slow tendency to increase. 
This is a low figure for so large a country, and for one which, 
under the Romans, is said to have swarmed with inhabitants as 
busy and industrious as ants ; indeed, the longest period of rest 
and settled government which this ill-fated land has ever en- 
joyed was during the three centuries that the Roman power was 
undisputed. The Peninsula is then seldom mentioned by au- 
thors ; and how much happiness is inferred by that silence, when 
the blood-spattered page of history was chiefly employed to regis- 
ter great calamities, plagues, pestilences, wars, battles, or the 
freaks of men, at which angels weep ! Certainly one of the 
causes which have changed this happy state of things, has been 
the numerous and fierce invasions to which Spain has been ex- 
posed ; fatal to her has been her gift of beauty and wealth, which 
has ever attracted the foreign ravisher and spoiler. The Goths, 
to whom a worse name has been ' given than they deserved in 
Spain, were ousted by the Moors, the real and wholesale destroy- 
ers; bringing to the darkling West the luxuries, arts and sci- 
ences of the bright East, they had nothing to learn from the con- 
quered ; to them the Goth was no instructor, as the Roman had 
been to him ; they despised both of their predecessors, with 
whose wants and works they had no sympathy, while they ab- 
horred their creed as idolatrous and polytheistic — down went al- 



34 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

tar and image. There was no fair town which they did not des- 
troy ; they exterminated, say their annals, the fowls of the air. 

The Gotho-Spaniard in process of time retaliated, and com- 
bated the invader with his own weapons, bettering indeed the 
destructive lesson which was taught. The effects of these wars, 
carried on without treaty, without quarter, and waged for coun- 
try and creed, are evident in those parts of Spain which were 
their theatre. Thus, vast portions of Estremadura, the south of 
Toledo and Andalucia, by nature some of the richest and most 
fertile in the world, are now dehesas y despoblados, depopulated 
wastes, abandoned to the wild bee for his heritage ; the country 
remains as it was left after the discomfiture of the Moor. The 
early chronicles of both Spaniard and Moslem teem with accounts 
of the annual forays inflicted on each other, and to which a fron- 
tier-district was always exposed. The object of these border 
guerrilla-warfares was extinction, talar, quemar y rohar, to deso- 
late, burn, and rob, to cut down fruit-trees, to " harry," to " raz- 
zia."* The internecine struggle was that of rival nations and 
creeds. It was truly Oriental, and such as Ezekiel, who well knew 
the Phoenicians, has described : " Go ye after him through the city 
and smite ; let not your eye have pity, neither have ye pity ; slay 
utterly old and young, both maids and little children and women." 
The religious duty of smiting the infidel precluded mercy on both 
sides alike, for the Christian foray and crusade was the exact coun- 
terpart of the Moslem algara and algiliad ; while, from military 
reasons, everything was turned into a desert, in order to create a 
frontier Edom of starvation, a defensive glacis, through which no 
invading army could pass and live ; the " beasts of the field alone 
increased." Nature, thus abandoned, resumed her rights, and 
has cast off every trace of former cultivation ; and districts the 
granai'ies of the Roman and the Moor, now offer the saddest con- 
trasts to that former prosperity and industry. 

To these horrors succeeded the thinning occasioned by causes 
of a bigoted and political nature : the expulsion of the Jews 

* Razzia is derived from the Arabic Al ghazia, a word whicli expresses 
these raids of a ferocious, barbarous age. It has been introduced to Eu- 
ropean dictionaries by the Pelissiers, who thus civilize Algeria. They make 
a solitude, and call it peace. 



BUONAPARTE'S INVASION. 



deprived poor Spain of her bankers, while the final banishment 
of the Moriscoes, the remnant of the Moors, robbed the soil of its 
best and most industrious agriculturists. 

Again, in our time, have the fatal scenes of contending Chris- 
tian and Moor been renewed in the struggle for national independ- 
ence, waged by Spaniards against the Buonapartist invaders, by 
Avhom neither age nor sex was spared — neither things sacred nor 
profane ; the land is everywhere scarred with ruins ; a few hours' 
Vandalism sufficed to undo the works of ages of piety, wealth, 
learning and good taste. The French retreat was worse than 
their advance : then, infuriated by disgrace and disaster, the 
Soults and Massenas vented their spite on the unarmed villagers 
and their cottages. But let General Foy describe their progress : 
— " Ainsi que la neige precipitee des sommets des Alpes dans les 
vallons, nos armees innombrables detruisaient en quelques heures, 
par leur seul passage, les ressources de toute une contree ; elles 
bivouaquaient habituellement, et a chaque gite nos soldats demo- 
lissaient les maisons baties depuis un demi-siecle, pour construire 
avec les decombres ces longs villages alignes qui souvent ne 
devaient durer qu'un jour : au defaut du bois des forets les arbres 
fruitiers, les vegetaux precieux, comme le murier, I'olivier, 
I'oranger, servaient a les rechauffer ; les conscrits irrites a la 
fois par le besoin et par le danger contractaient une ivresse morale 
dont nous ne cherchions pas a les guerir." 

"So France gets drunk with blood to vomit crime, 
And fatal ever have her saturnalia been." 

Who can fail to compare this habitual practice of Buonaparte's 
legions with the terrible description in Hosea of the " great people 
and strong" who execute the dread judgments of heaven ? — " A 
fire devoureth before them, and behind them a flame burneth ; 
the land is the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a 
desolate wilderness, yea, and nothing shall escape them." 

No sooner were they beaten out by the Duke, than population 
began to spring up again, as the bruised flowrets do when the 
iron heel of marching hordes has passed on. Then ensued the 
civil fratricide wars, draining the land of its males, from which 
bleeding Spain has not yet recovered. Insecurity of property 



36 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

and person will ever prove bars to marriage and increased popu- 
lation. 

Again, a deeper and more permanent curse has steadily oper- 
ated for the last two centuries, at which Spanish authors long 
have not dared to hint. They have ascribed the depopulation oi' 
Estremadura to the swarm of colonist adventurers and emigrants 
who departed from this province of Cortez and Pizarro to seek 
for fortune in the new world of gold and silver ; and have attrib- 
uted the similar want of inhabitants in Andalucia to the similar 
outpouring from Cadiz, which, with Seville, engrossed the traffic 
of the Americas. But colonization never thins a vigorous, well- 
conditioned mother state — witness the rapid and daily increase of 
population in our own island, which, like Tyre of old, is ever 
sending forth her outpouring myriads, and wafts to the uttermost 
parts of the sea, on the white wings of her merchant fleets, the 
blessings of peace, religion, liberty, order, and civilization, to dis- 
seminate which is the mission of Great Britain. 

The real permanent and standing cause of Spain's thinly peo- 
pled state, want of cultivation, and abomination of desolation, is 
Bad Government, civil and religious ; this all who run may 
read in her lonely land and silent towns. But Spain, if the anecdote 
which her children love to tell be true, will never be able to re- 
move the incubus of this fertile origin of every evil. When Fer- 
dinand III. captured Seville and died, being a saint he escaped 
purgatory, and Santiago presented him to the Virgin, who forth- 
with desired him to ask any favors for beloved Spain. The mon- 
arch petitioned for oil, wine, and corn — conceded ; for sunny 
skies, brave men, and pretty women — allowed ; for cigars, relics, 
garlic, and bulls — by all means ; for a good government — " Nay, 
nay," said the Virgin, " that never can be granted ; for were it 
bestowed, not an angel would remain a day longer in heaven." 
■^ The present revenue may be taken at about 12,000,000/. or 
13,000,000/. sterling ; but money is compared by Spaniards to 
oil ; a little will stick to the fingers of those who measure it out ; 
and such is the robbing and jobbing, the official mystification and 
peculation, that it is difficult to get at facts whenever cash is in 
question. The revenue, moreover, is badly collected, and at a 
ruinous per centage, and at no time during this last century has 






THE BOLSA. 



been sufficient for the national expenses. Recourse has been had 
to the desperate experiments of usurious loans and wholesale con- 
fiscations. At one time church pillage and appropriation was al- 
most the only item in the governmental budget. The recipients 
were ready to " prove from Vatel exceedingly well" that the first 
duty of a rich clergy was to relieve the necessitous, and the more 
when the State was a pauper ; croziers are no match for bayonets. 
This system necessarily cannot last. Since the reign of Philip 
II. every act of dishonesty has been perpetrated. Public securi- 
ties have been " repudiated," interest unpaid, and principal 
spunged out. No country in the Old World, or even New drab- 
coated World, stands lower in financial discredit. Let all be 
aware how they embark in Spanish speculations : however pro- 
mising in the prospectus, they will, sooner or later, turn out to be 
deceptions ; and whether they assume the form of loans, lands, or 
rails, none are real securities : they are mere castles in the air, 
chateaux en Espagne : " The earth has bubbles as the water has, 
and these are of them." 

For the benefit and information of those who have purchased 
Iberian stock, it may be stated that an exchange, or Bolsa de 
Comercio, was established at Madrid in 1831. It may be called 
the coldest spot in the hot capital, and the idlest, since the usual 
" city article" is short and sweet, " sin operaciones," or nothing 
has been bought or sold. It might be likened to a tomb, with 
" Here lies Spanish credit " for its epitaph. If there be a thing 
which "La perjide Albion," "a nation of shopkeepers," dislikes, 
worse even than a French assignat, it is a bankrupt. One cir- 
cumstance is clear, that Castilian pundonor, or point of honor, will 
rather settle its debts with cold iron and warm abuse than with 
gold and thanks. 

The Exchange at Madrid was first held at St. Martin's, a saint 
who divided his cloak with a supplicant. As comparisons are 
odious, and bad examples catching, it has been recently removed 
to the Calle del Desengaiio, the street of " finding out fallacious 
hopes," a locality which the bitten will not deem ill-chosen. 

As all men in power use their official knowledge in taking ad- 
vantage of the turn of the market, the Bolsa divides with the court 
and army the moving influence of every situacion or crisis of the 



38 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

moment: clever as are the ministers of Paris, they are mere 
tyros when compared to their colleagues of Madrid in the arts of 
working the telegraph, gazette, (fee, and thereby feathering their 
own nests. 

The Stock Exchange is open from ten to three o'clock, where 
those who like Spanish funds may buy them as cheap as stinking 
mackerel ; for when the 3 per cents, of perfidious Albion are at 
98, surely Spanish fives at 2*2 are a tempting investment. The 
stocks are numerous, and suited to all tastes and pockets, whether 
those funded by Aguado, Ardouin, Toreno, Mendizabal, or Mon, 
" all honorable men," and whose punctuality is un-remitting, 
for in some the principal is consolidated, in others the interest 
is deferred ; the grand financial object in all having been to re- 
ceive as much as possible, and pay back in an inverse ratio — 
their leading principle being to bag both principal and interest. 
As we have just said, in measuring out money and oil a little 
will stick to the cleanest fingers — the Madrid ministers and con- 
tractors made fortunes, and actually "did" the Hebrews of Lon- 
don, as their forefathers spoiled the Egyptians. But from Philip II. 
downwards, theologians have never been wanting in Spain to 
prove the religious, however painful, duty of bankruptcy, and 
particularly in contracts with usurious heretics. The stranger, 
when shown over the Madrid bank, had better evince no imperti- 
nent curiosity to see the " Dividend fay office," as it might give 
offence. Whatever be our dear reader's pursuit in the Penin- 
sula, let him — 

" Neither a borrower nor lender be, 
For loan oft loseth both itself and friend." 

Beware of Spanish stock, for in spite of official reports, docu- 
mentos, and arithmetical mazes, which, intricate as an arabesque 
pattern, look well on paper without being intelligible ; in spite 
of ingenious conversions, fundings of interest, coupons — some 
active, some passive, and other repudiatory terms and tenses, the 
present excepted — the thimblerig is always the same ; and this is 
the question, since national credit depends on national good faith 
and surplus income, how can a country pay interest on debts, 
whose revenues have long been, and now are, miserably insuffi- 



PUBLIC DEBT. 39 



cient for the ordinary expenses of government ? You cannot get 
blood from a stone ; ex nihilo nihil fit. 

Mr. Macgregor's report on Spain, a truthful exposition of 
commercial ignorance, habitual disregard of treaties and viola- 
tion of contracts, describes her public securities, past and pres- 
ent. Certainly they had very imposing names and titles — Juros 
Bonos, Vales reales, Titulos, &c., — much more royal, grand, and 
poetical than our prosaic Consols ; but no oaths can attach real 
value to dishonored and good-for-nothing paper. According to 
some financiers, the public debts of Spain, previously to 1808, 
amounted to 83.763, 966Z., which have since been increased to 
279,083,089?., farthings omitted, for we like to be accurate. This 
possibly may be exaggerated, for the government will give no 
information as to its own peculation and mismanagement : ac- 
cording to Mr. Henderson, 78,649,675Z. of this debt is due to 
English creditors alone, and we wish they may get it, when he 
gets to Madrid. In the time of James I., Mr. Howell was sent 
there on much such an errand ; and when he left it, his " pile of 
unredressed claims was higher than himself" At all events, 
Spain is over head and ears in debt, and irremediably insolvent. 
And yet few countries, if we regard the fertility of her soil, her 
golden possessions at home and abroad, her frugal temperate 
population, ought to have been less embarrassed ; but Heaven lias 
granted her every blessing, except a good and honest government. 
It is either a bully or a craven : satisfaction in twenty-four hours, 
d la Bresson, or a line-of-battle ship off Malaga — Cromwell's re- 
ceipt — is the only argument which these semi-Moors understand : 
conciliatory language is held to be weakness : you may obtain at 
once from their fears what never will be granted by their sense 
of justice. 



THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 



CHAPTER V. 

Travelling in Spain — Steamers — Roads, Roman, Monastic, and Royal — 
Modern Railways — English Speculations. 

Of the many misrepresentations regarding Spain, few are more 
inveterate than those which refer to the dangers and difficuhies 
that are there supposed to beset the traveller. This, the most 
romantic, racy, and peculiar country of Europe, may in reality 
be visited by sea and land, and throughout its length and breadth, 
with ease and safety, as all who have ever been there well know, 
the nonsense with which Cockney critics who never have been 
there scare delicate writers in albums and lady-bird tourists, to 
the contrary notwithstanding : the steamers are regular, the 
mails and diligences excellent, the roads decent, and the mules 
sure-footed ; nay, latterly, the posadas, or inns, have been so in- 
creased, and the robbers so decreased, that some ingenuity must 
be evinced in getting either starved or robbed. Those, however, 
who are dying for new excitements, or who wish to make a pic- 
ture or chapter, in short, to get up an adventure for the home- 
market, may manage by a great exhibition of imprudence, chat- 
tering, and a holding out luring baits, to gratify their hankering, 
although it would save some time, trouble, and expense to try the 
experiment much nearer home. 

As our readers live in an island, we will commence with the 
sea and steamers. 

The Peninsular and Oriental Navigation Company depart regu- 
larly three times a month from Southampton for Gibraltar. They 
often arrive at Corunna in seventy hours, from whence a mail 
starts directly to Madrid, which it reaches in three days and a 
half. The vessels are excellent sea-boats, are manned by Eng- 
lish sailors, and propelled by English machinery. The passage 
to Vigo has been made in less than three days, and the voyage 



STEAMERS. 



to Cadiz — touching at Lisbon included — seldom exceeds six. 
The change of climate, scenery, men, and manners effected by 
this week's trip, is indeed remarkable. Quitting the British 
Channel we soon enter the '• sleepless Bay of Biscay," where 
the stormy petrel is at home, and where the gigantic swell of the 
Atlantic is first checked by Spain's iron-bound coast, the moun- 
tain break-water of Europe. Here The Ocean will be seen in 
all its vast majesty and solitude : grand in the tempest-lashed 
storm, grand in the calm, when spread out as a mirror ; and 
never more impressive than at night, when the stars of heaven, 
free from eai'th-born mists, sparkle like diamonds over those '' who 
go down to the sea in ships, and behold the works of the Lord, 
and his wonders in the deep." The land has disappeared, and 
man feels alike his weakness and his strength ; a thin plank 
separates him from another world ; yet he has laid his hand upon 
the billow, and mastered the ocean ; he has made it the highway 
of commerce, and the binding link of nations. 

The steamers which navigate the Eastern coast from Marseilles 
to Cadiz and back again, are cheaper indeed in their fares, but 
by no means such good sea-boats ; nor do they keep their time — 
the essence of business — with English regularity. They are 
foreign built, and worked by Spaniards and Frenchmen. They 
generally stop a day at Barcelona, Valencia, and other large 
towns, which gives them an opportunity to replenish coal, and to 
smuggle. A rapid traveller is also thus enabled to pay a flying 
visit to the cities on the seaboard ; and thus those lively authors 
who comprehend foreign nations with an intuitive eagle-eyed 
glance, obtain materials for sundry octavos on the history, arts, 
sciences, literature, and genius of Spaniards. But as Mons. 
Feval remarks of some of his gifted countrymen, they have mei'ely 
to scratch their head, according to the Horatian expression, and 
out come a number of volumes, ready bound in calf, as Minerva 
issued forth armed from the temple of Jupiter. 

The Mediterranean is a dangerous, deceitful sea, fair and false 
as Italia ; the squalls are sudden and terrific ; then the crews 
either curse the sacred name of God, or invoke St. Telmo, ac- 
cording as their notion may be. We have often been so caught 
when sailing on these perfidious waters in these foreign craft, 



42 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

and think, with the Spaniards, that escape is a miracle. The 
hilarity excited by witnessing the jabber, confusion, and lubber 
proceedings, went far to dispel all present apprehension, and 
future also. Some of our poor blue-jackets in case of a war may 
possibly escape the fate with which they are threatened in this 
French lake. But no wise man will ever go by sea when he 
can travel by land, nor is viewing Spain's coasts with a telescope 
from the deck, and passing a few hours in a sea-port, a very 
satisfactory mode of becoming acquainted with the country. 

The roads of Spain, a matter of much importance to a judicious 
traveller, are somewhat a modern luxury, having been only 
regularly introduced by the Bourbons. The Moors and Span- 
iards, who rode on horses and not in carriages, suffered those 
magnificent lines with which the Romans had covered the Penin- 
sula to go to decay ; of these there were no less than twenty- 
nine of the first order, which were absolutely necessary to a na- 
tion of conquerors and colonists to keep up their military and 
commercial communications. The grandest of all, which like 
the Appian might be termed the Queen of Roads, ran from 
Merida, the capital of Lusitania, to Salamanca. It was laid 
down like a Cyclopean wall, and much of it remains to this day, 
with the grey granite line stretching across the aromatic wastes, 
like the vertebrae of an extinct mammoth. We have followed 
for miles its course, which is indicated by the still standing 
military columns that rise above the cistus underwood ; here and 
there tall forest trees grow out of the stone pavement, and show 
how long it has been abandoned by man to Nature ever young 
and gay, who thus by uprooting and displacing the huge blocks 
slowly recovers her rights. She festoons the ruins with neck- 
laces of flowers and creepers, and hides the rents and wrinkles 
of odious, all-dilapidating Time, or man's worse neglect, as a 
pretty maid decorates a shrivelled dowager's with diamonds. 
The Spanish muleteer creeps along by its side in a track which 
[he has made through the sand or pebbles ; he seems ashamed to 
trample on this lordly way, for which, in his petty wants, he has no 
occasion. Most of the similar roads have been taken up by monks 
tx) raise convents, by burgesses to build houses, by military men 
to construct fortifications — thus even their ruins have perished. 



LEGEND OF SANTO DOMINGO. 



The mediseval Spanish roads were the works of the clergy ; 
and the long-bearded monks, here as elsewhere, were the pioneers 
of civilization ; they made straight, wide, and easy the way 
which led to their convent, their high place, their miracle shrine, 
or to whatever point of pilgrimage that was held out to the de- 
vout ; traffic was soon combined with devotion, and the service 
of mammon with that of God. This imitation of the Oriental 
practice which obtained at Mecca, is evidenced by language in 
which the Spanish term Feria signifies at once a religious func- 
tion, a holiday, and a fair. Even saints condescended to become 
waywardens, and to take title from the highway. Thus Sanio 
Domingo de la Calzada, " St. Domenick of the Paved Road," 
was so called from his having been the first to make one through 
a part of Old Castile for the benefit of pilgrims on their way to 
Compostella, and this town yet bears the honored appellation. 

This feat and his legend have furnished Southey with a sub- 
ject of a droll ballad. The saint having finished his road, next 
set up an inn or Ve7ita, the Maritornes of which fell in love with a 
handsome pilgrim, who resisted ; whereupon she hid some spoons 
in this Joseph's saddlebags, who was taken up by the Alcalde, 
and forthwith hanged. But his parents some time afterwards 
passed under the body, which told them that he was innocent, 
alive, and well, and all by the intercession of the sainted road- 
maker ; thereupon they proceeded forthwith to the truculent Al- 
calde, who was going to dine off two roasted fowls, and, on hear- 
ing their report, remarked. You might as well tell me that this 
cock (pointing to his roti) would crow ; whereupon it did crow, 
and was taken with its hen to the cathedral, and two chicks have 
ever since been regularly hatched every year from these respect- 
able parents, of which a travelling ornithologist should secure one 
for the Zoological Garden. The cock and hen were duly kept 
near the high altar, and their white feathers were worn by pil- 
grims in their caps. Prudent bagsmen will, however, put a 
couple of ordinary roast fowls into their " provend," for hungry 
is this said road to Logrono. 

In this land of miracles, anomalies, and contradictions, the 
roads to and from this very Coirvpostella are now detestable. In 
other provinces of Spain, the star-paved milky way in heaven is 



44 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

called El Camino de Santiago, the road of St. James ; but the 
Gallicians, who know what their roads really are, namely, the 
worst on earth, call the milky-way El Camino de Jerusalem, 
" the road to Jerusalem," which it assuredly is not. The an- 
cients poetically attributed this phenomenon to some spilt milk of 
Juno. 

Meanwhile the roads in Gallicia, although under the patronage 
of Santiago, who has replaced the Roman Hermes, are, like his 
milky-way in heaven, but little indebted to mortal repairs. The 
Dean of Santiago is waywarden by virtue of his office or dignity, 
and especially " protector." The chapter, however, now chiefly 
profess to make smooth the road to a better world. They have 
altogether degenerated from their forefathers, whose grand object 
was to construct roads for the pilgrims ; but since the cessation 
of offering-making Hadjis, little or nothing has been done in the 
turnpike-trust line. 

Some of the finest roads in Spain lead either to the siiios or 
ro3i'al pleasure-seats of the king, or wind gently up some elevated 
and monastery-crowned mountain like Monserrat. The ease of the 
despot was consulted, while that of his subjects was neglected ; 
and the Sultan was the State, Spain was his property, and Span- 
iards his serfs, and willing ones, for as in the East, their perfect 
equality amongst each other was one result of the immeasurable 
superiority of the master of all. Thus, while he rolled over a 
road hard and level as a bowling-green, and rapidly as a gallop- 
ing team could proceed, to a mere summer residence, the com- 
munication between Madrid and Toledo, that city on which the 
sun shone on the day light was made, has remained a mere track 
ankle deep in mud during winter and dust-clouded during sum- 
mer, and changing its direction with the caprice of wandering 
sheep and muleteers ; but Bourbon Royalty never visited this 
widowed capital of the Goths, The road therefore was left as it 
existed if not before the time of Adam, at least before MacAdam. 
There is some talk just now of beginning a regular road ; when 
it will be finished is another affair. 

The church, which shared with the state in dominion, followed 
the royal example in consulting its own comforts as to roads. 
Nor could it be expected in a torrid land, that holy men, whose 



ROAD TO LA CORUNA. 45 

abdomens occasionally were prominent and pendulous, should lard 
the stony or sandy earth like goats, or ascend heaven-kissing hills 
so expeditiously as their prayers. In Spain the primary consider- 
ation has ever been the souls, not the bodies, of men, or legs of 
beasts. It would seem indeed, from the indifference shown to 
the sufferings of these quadrupedal blood-engines, Maquinas de 
sangre, as they are called, and still more from the reckless waste 
of biped life, that a man was of no value until he was dead ; 
then what admirable contrivances for the rapid travelling of his 
winged spirit, first to purgatory, next out again, and thence 
from stage to stage to his journey's end and blessed rest ! More 
money has been thus expended in masses than would have 
covered Spain with railroads, even on a British scale of magnifi- 
cence and extravagance. 

To descend to the roads of the peninsular earth, the principal 
lines are nobly planned. These geographical arteries, which 
form the circulation of the country, branch in every direction 
from Madrid, which is the centre of the system. Tliio road- 
making spirit of Louis XIV. passed into his Spanish descendants, 
and during the reigns of Charles III. and Charles IV. commu- 
nications were completed between the capital and the principal 
cities of the provinces. These causeways, " Arrecifes" — these 
royal roads, " Caminos reales'' — were planned on an almost un- 
necessary scale of grandeur, in regard both to width, parapets, 
and general execution. The high road to La Coruiia, especially 
afler entering Leon, will stand comparison with any in Europe ; 
but when Spaniards finish anything it is done in a grand style, 
and in this instance the expense was so enormous that the king 
inquired if it was paved with silver, alluding to the common 
Spanish corruption of the old Roman via lata into " camino de 
plata,^' of plate. This and many of the others were constructed 
from fifty to seventy years ago, and very much on the M'Adam 
system, which, having been since introduced into England, has 
rendered our roads so very different from what they were not very 
long since. The war in the Peninsula tended to deteriorate the 
Spanish roads — when bridges and other conveniences were fre- 
quently destroyed for military reasons, and the exhausted state of 
the finances of Spain, and troubled times, have delayed many of 



46 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

the more costly reparations ; yet those of the first class were so 
admirably constructed at the beginning, that, in spite of the in- 
juries of war, ruts, and neglect, they may, as a whole, be pro- 
nounced equal to many of the Continent, and are infinitely more 
pleasant to the traveller from the absence of pavement. The roads 
in England have, indeed, latterly been rendered so excellent, and 
we are so apt to compare those of other nations with them, that 
we forget that fifty years ago Spain was in advance in that and 
many other respects. Spain remains very much what other 
countries were : she has stood on her old ways, moored to the 
anchor of prejudice, while we have progressed, and consequently 
now appears behind-hand in many things in which she set the 
fashion to England. 

The grand royal roads start from Madrid, and run to the prin- 
cipal frontier and sea-port towns. Thus the capital may be com- 
pared to a spider, as it is the centre of the Peninsular web. 
These diverging fan-like lines are sufficiently convenient to all 
who are about to journey to any single terminus, but inter-com- 
munications are almost entirely wanting between any one ter- 
minus with another. This scanty condition of the Peninsular 
roads accounts for the very limited portions of the country which 
are usually visited by foreigners, who — the French especially — 
keep to one beaten track, the high road, and follow each other 
like wild geese ; a visit to Burgos, Madrid, and Seville, and then 
a steam trip from Cadiz to Valencia and Barcelona, is considered 
to be making the grand tour of Spain ; thus the world is favored 
with volumes that reflect and repeat each other, which tell us 
what we know already, while the rich and rare, the untrodden, 
unchanged, and truly Moro-Hispahic portions are altogether ne- 
glected, except by the exceptional few, who venture forth like 
Don Quixote on their horses, in search of adventures and the pic- 
turesque. 

The other roads of Spain are bad, but not much more so than 
in other parts of the Continent, and serve tolerably well in dry 
weather. They are divided into those which are practicable for 
wheel-carriages, and those which are only bridle-roads, or as they 
call them, " of horseslioe," on which all thought of going with a 
carriage is out of the question ; when these horse or mule tracks 



TRAVELLING. 



are very bad, especially among the mountains, they compare 
them to roads for partridges. The cross roads are seldom tolera- 
ble ; it is safest to keep the high-road — or, as we have it in Eng- 
lish, the furthest way round is the nearest way home — for there 
is no short cut without hard work, says the Spanish proverb, " ho 
hayatajo, sin traiajo." 

All this sounds very unpromising, but those who adopt the cus- 
toms of the country will never find much practical difficulty in 
getting to their journey's end ; slowly, it is true, for where 
leagues and hours are convertible terms — the Spanish Jiora being 
the heavy German stunde — the distance is regulated by the day- 
light. Bridle roads and travelling on horseback, the former sys- 
tems of Europe, are very Spanish and Oriental ; and where 
people journey on horse and mule back, the road is of minor 
importance. In the remoter provinces of Spain the population is 
agricultural and poverty-stricken, unvisiting and un visited, not 
going much beyond their chimney's smoke. Each family pro- 
vides for its simple habits and few wants ; having but little money 
to buy foreign commodities, they are clad and fed, like the Be- 
douins, with the productions of their own fields and flocks. There 
is little circulation of persons ; a neighboring fair is the mart 
where they obtain the annual supply of whatever luxury they 
can indulge in, or it is brought to their cottages by wandering 
muleteers, or by the smuggler, who is the type and channel of 
the really active principle of trade in three-fourths of the Penin- 
sula. It is wonderful how soon a well-mounted traveller becomes 
attached to travelling on horseback, and how quickly he becomes 
reconciled to a state of roads which, startling at first to those ac- 
customed to carriage highways, are found to answer perfectly for 
all the purposes of the place and people where they are found. 

Let us say a few things on Spanish railroads, for the mania of 
England has surmounted the Pyrenees, although confined rather 
more to words than deeds ; in fact, it has been said that no rail 
exists, in any country of either the new world or the old one, in 
which the Spanish language is spoken, probably from other objec- 
tions than those merely philological. Again, in other countries, 
roads, canals, and traffic usher in the rail, which in Spain is to pre- 
pede and introduce them. Thus, by the prudent delays of na- 



48 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

tional caution and procrastination, much of the trouble and ex- 
pense of these intermediate stages will he economized, and Spain 
will jump at once from a mediteval condition into the comforts 
and glories of Great Britain, the land of restless travellers. 
Be that as it may, just now there is much talk of railroads, and 
splendid official and other docwnentos are issued, by which the 
" whole country is to be intersected (on paper) with a net-work 
of rapid and bowling-green communications," which are to 
create a "perfect homogeneity among Spaniards ;" for great as 
have been the labors of Herculean steam, this amalgamation 
of the Iberian rope of sand has properly been reserved for the 
crowning performance. 

It would occupy too much space to specify the infinite lines 
which are in contemplation, which may be described when com- 
pleted. Suffice it to say, that they almost all are to be effected 
by the iron and gold of England. However this estrangerismo, 
this influence of the foreigner, may offend the sensitive pride, 
the EspaTiolismo of Spain, the power of resistance offered by the 
national indolence and dislike to change, must be propelled 
by British steam with a dash of French revolution. Yet our 
speculators might, perhaps, reflect that Spain is a land which 
never yet has been able to construct or support even a sufficient 
number of 'common roads or canals for her poor and passive 
commerce and circulation. The distances are far too great, and 
the traffic far too small, to call yet for the rail ; while the geolo- 
gical formation of the country offers difficulties which, if met 
with even in England, would baffle the colossal science and 
extravagance of our first-rate engineers. Spain is a land of 
mountains, which rise everywhere in Alpine barriers, walling off" 
province from province, and district from district. These 
mighty cloud-capped sierras are solid masses of hard stone, and 
any tunnels which ever perforate their ranges will reduce that 
at Box to the delving of the poor mole. You might as well 
cover Switzerland and the Tyrol with a net-work of level lines, 
as those caught in the aforesaid net will soon discover to their 
cost. The outlay of this up-hill work may be in an inverse ratio 
to the remuneration, for the one will be enormous, and the other 



DIFFICULTIES OF RAILROADS. 49 

paltry. The parturient mountains may produce a most musipular 
interest, and even that may be "deferred." 

Spain, again, is a land of dehesas y despoblados : in these wild 
unpeopled wastes, next to travellers, commerce and cash are 
what is scarce, while even Madrid, the capital, is without in- 
dustry or resources, and poorer than many of our provincial 
cities. The Spaniard, a creature of routine and foe to inno- 
vations, is not a moveable or locomotive ; local, and a parochial 
fixture by nature, he hates moving like a Turk, and has a par- 
ticular horror of being hurried ; long, therefore, here has an 
ambling mule answered all the purposes of transporting man and 
his goods. Who again is to do the work even if England will 
pay the wages '? The native, next to disliking regular sustained 
labor himself, abhors seeing the foreigner toiling even in his 
service, and wasting his gold and sinews in the thankless task. 
The villagers, as they always have done, will rise against the 
stranger and heretic who comes to " suck the wealth of Spain." 
Supposing, however, by the aid of Santiago and Brunei, that the 
work were possible and were completed, how is it to be secured 
against the fierce action of the sun, and the fiercer violence of 
popular ignorance ? The first cholera that visits Spain will be 
set down as a passenger per rail by the dispossessed muleteer, 
who now performs the functions of steam and rail. He consti- 
tutes one of the most numerous and finest classes in Spain, and 
is the legitimate channel of the semi-Oriental caravan system. 
He will never permit the bread to be taken out of his mouth by 
this Lutheran locomotive : deprived of means of earning his 
livelihood, he, like the smuggler, will take to the road in another 
line, and both will become either robbers or patriots. Many, 
long, and lonely are the leagues which separate town from town 
in the wide deserts of thinly-peopled Spain, nor will any pre- 
ventive service be sufficient to guard the rail against the guer- 
rilla warfare that may then be waged. A handful of opponents 
in any cistus-overgrown waste, may at any time, in five minutes, 
break up the road, stop the train, stick the stoker, and burn the 
engines in their own fire, particularly smashing the luggage-train. 
What, again, has ever been the recompense which the foreigner 
has met with from Spain but breach of promise and ingratitude ? 
PART I. 4 



50 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

He will be used, as in the East, until the native thinks that he has 
mastered his arts, and then he will be abused, cast out, and trod- 
den under foot ; and who then will keep up and repair the costly 
artificial undertaking ? — certainly not the Spaniard, on whose 
pericranium the bumps of operative skill and mechanical construc- 
tion have yet to be developed. 

The lines which are the least sure of failure will be those 
which are the shortest, and pass through a level country of some 
natural productions, such as oil, wine, and coal. Certainly, if 
the rail can be laid down in Spain by the gold and science of 
England, the gift, like that of steam, will be worthy of the 
Ocean's Queen, and of the world's real leader of civilization ; and 
what a change will then come over the spirit of the Peninsula ! 
how the siestas of torpid man-vegetation, will be disturbed by 
the shrill whistle and panting snort of the monster engine ! how 
the seals of this long hermetically shut-up land will be broken ! 
how the cloistered obscure, and dreams of treasures in heaven, 
will be enlightened by the flashing fire-demon of the wide-awake 
money-worshipper ! what owls will be vexed, what bats dispos- 
sessed, what drones, mules, and asses will be scared, run over, 
and annihilated ! Those who love Spain, and pray, like the 
author, daily for her prosperity, must indeed hope to see this 
" net- work of rails" concluded, but will take especial care at 
the same time not to invest one farthing in the imposing specu- 
lation. 

Recent results have fully justified during this year what was 
prophesied last year in the Hand-Book : our English agents and 
engineers were received with almost divine honors by the Span- 
iards, so incensed were they with flattery and cigars. Their 
shares were instantaneously subscribed for, and directors nomi- 
nated, with names and titles longer even than the lines, and the 
smallest contributions in cash were thankfully accepted : — 

" L'argfent dans une bourse entre agreablement ; 
Mais le terme venu, quand il faut le rendre, 
C'est alors que les douleurs commencent a nous prendre." 

When the period for booking up, for making the first instalments, 
arrived, the Spanish shareholders were found somewhat wanting : 



ANGLO-HISPANO RAILROADS. 



they repudiated ; for in the Peninsula it has long been easier to 
promise than to pay. Again, on the only line which seems 
likely to be carried out at present, that of Madrid to Aranjuez, 
the first step taken by them was to dismiss all English engineers 
and navvies, on the plea of encouraging native talent, and in- 
dustry rather than the foreigner. Many of the English home 
proceedings would border on the ridiculous, were not the laugh 
of some speculators rather on the wrong side. The City capi- 
talists certainly have our pity, and if their plethora of wealth re- 
quired the relief of bleeding, it could not be better performed than 
by a Spanish Sangrado. How different some of the windings-up, 
the final reports, to the magnificent beginnings and grandiloquent 
prospectuses put forth as baits for John Bull, who hoped to be 
tossed at once, or elevated, from haberdashery to a throne, by 
being offered a " potentiality of getting rich beyond the dreams 
of avarice !" Thus, to clench assertion by example, the London 
directors of the Royal Valencia Company made known by 
an advertisement only last July, that they merely required 
240,000,000 reals to connect the seaport of Valencia — where 
there is none — to the capital Madrid,- with 800,000 inhabitants, — 
there not being 200,000. One brief passage alone seemed omi- 
nous in the lucid array of prospective profit — " The line has not 
yet been minutely surveyed;" this might have suggested to the 
noble Marquis whose attractive name heads the provisional com- 
mittee list, the difficulty of Sterne's traveller, of whom, when 
observing how much better things were managed on the Continent 
than in England, the question was asked, "Have you, sir, ever 
been there ?" 

A still wilder scheme was broached, to connect Aviles on the 
Atlantic with Madrid, the Austrian Alps and the Guadarrama 
mountains to the contrary notwithstanding. The originator of 
this ingenious idea was to receive 40,000Z. for the cession of his 
plan to the company, and actually did receive 25,000?., which, 
considering the difficulties, natural and otherwise, must be con- 
sidered an inadequate remuneration. Although the original and 
captivating prospectus stated " that the line had been surveyed, 
and presented no engineering difficulties," it was subsequently 
thought prudent to obtain some notion of the actual localities, 



52 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

and Sir Joshua Walmsley was sent forth with competent assist- 
ance to spy out the land, which the Jewish practice of old was 
rather to do before than after serious undertakings. A sad 
change soon came over the spirit of the London dream by the 
discovery that a country which looked level as Arrowsmith's 
map in the prospectus, presented such trifling obstacles to the 
rail as sundry leagues of mountain ridges, which range from 
6000 to 9000 feet high, and are covered with snow for many 
months of the year. This was a damper. The report of the 
special meeting (see ' Morning Chronicle,' December 18, 1845) 
should be printed in letters of gold, from the quantity of that 
article which it will preserve to our credulous countrymen. 
Then and there the chairman observed, with equal naiveU 
and pathos, " that had he known as much before as he did 
now, he would have been the last man to carry out a railway in 
Spain." This experience cost him, he observed, 5000Z., which 
is paying dear for a Spanish rail whistle. He might for five 
pounds have bought the works of Townshend and Captain Cook : 
our modesty prevents the naming another red book, in which 
these precise localities, these mighty Alps, are described by per- 
sons who had ridden, or rather soared, over them. At another 
meeting of another Spanish rail company, held at the London 
Tavern, October 20, 1846, another chairman announced "a fact 
of which he was not before aware, that it was impossible to sur- 
mount the Pyrenees." Meanwhile, the Madrid government had 
secured 30,000Z. from them by way of caution money ; but cau- 
tion disappears from our capitalists, whenever excess of cash 
mounts from their pockets into their heads ; loss of common sense 
and dollars is the natural result. But it is the fate of Spain and 
her things, to be judged of by those who have never been there, 
and who feel no shame at the indecency of the nakedness of their 
geographical ignorance. When the blind lead the blind, beware 
of hillocks and ditches. 



POST-OFFICE. 



CHAPTER VI. 



Post-office in Spain — Travelling with post horses — Riding post — Mails and 
Diligences, Galeras, Coches de Colleras, Drivers and manner of Driving, 
and Oaths. 

A SYSTEM of post, both for the despatch of letters and the con- 
veyance of couriers, was introduced into Spain under Philip and 
Juana, that is, towards the end of the reign of our Henry VII. ; 
whereas it was scarcely organized in England before the Govern- 
ment of Cromwell. Spain, which in these matters, as well as in 
many others, was once so much in advance, is now compelled to 
borrow her improvements from those nations of which she for- 
merly was the instructress : among these may be reckoned all 
travelling in carriages, whether public or private. 

The post-office for letters is arranged on the plan common to 
most countries on the Continent : the delivery is pretty regular, 
but seldom daily — twice or three times a week. Small scruple is 
made by the authorities in opening private letters, whenever they 
suspect the character of the correspondence. It is as well, there- 
fore, for the traveller to avoid expressing the whole of his opin- 
ions of the powers that be. The minds of men have been long 
troubled in Spain ; civil war has rendered them very distrustful 
and guarded in their written correspondence — " carta cantaj" " a 
letter speaks." 

There is the usual continental bother in obtaining post-horses, 
which results from their being a monopoly of government. There 
must be a passport, an official order, notice of departure, &;c. ; 
next ensue vexatious regulations in regard to the number of pas- 
sengers, horses, luggage, style of carriage, and so forth. These, 
and other spokes put into the wheel, appear to have been invented 
by clerks who sit at home devising how to impede rather than 
facilitate posting at all. 



64 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

Post-horses and mules are paid at the rate of seven rials each 
for each post. The Spanish postilions generally, and especially 
if well paid, drive at a tremendous pace, often amounting to a 
gallop ; nor are they easily stopped, even if the traveller desires 
it — they seem only to be intent on arriving at their stages' end, in 
order to indulge in the great national joy of then doing nothing ; 
to get there, they heed neither ruts nor ravines ; and when once 
their cattle are started the inside passenger feels like a kettle tied 
to the tail of a mad dog, or a comet ; the wild beasts think 
no more of him than if he were Mazeppa : thus money makes 
the mare and its driver to go, as surely in Spain as in all other 
countries. 

Another mode of travelling is by riding post, accompanied by a 
mounted postilion, who is changed with the cattle at each relay. 
It is an expeditious but fatiguing plan ; yet one which, like the 
Tartar courier of the East, has long prevailed in Spain. Thus 
our Charles I. rode to Madrid under the name of John Smith, by 
which he was not likely to be identified. The delight of Philip 
II., who boasted that he governed the world from the Escorial, 
was to receive frequent and early intelligence ; and this desire to 
hear something new is still characteristic of the Spanish govern- 
ment. The cabinet couriers have the preference of horses at 
every relay. The particular distances they have to perform are 
all timed, and so many leagues are required to be done in a fixed 
time ; and, in order to encourage despatch, for every hour gained 
on the allowed time, an additional sum was paid to them : hence 
the common expression "ganando horas,'' gaining hours — equiva- 
lent to our old " post haste — haste for your life." 

The usual mode of travelling for the affluent is in the public 
conveyances, which are the fashion from being novelties and only 
introduced under Ferdinand VII. ; previously to their being 
allowed at all, serious objections were started, similar to those 
raised by his late Holiness to the introduction of railways into 
the papal states ; it was said that these tramontane facilities 
would bring in foreigners, and with them philosophy, heresy, 
and innovations, by which the wisdom of Spain's ancestors might 
be upset. These scruples were ingeniously got over by bribing 
the monarch with a large share of the profits. Now that the 



DILIGENCES. 



royal monopoly is broken down, many new and competing com- 
panies have sprung up ; this mode of travelling is the cheapest 
and safest, nor is it thought at all beneath the dignity of " the best 
set," nay royalty itself goes by the coach. Thus the Infante Don 
Francisco de Paula constantly hires the whole of the diligence 
to convey himself and his family from Madrid to the sea-coast ; 
and one reason gravely given for Don Enrique's not coming to 
marry the Queen, was that his Royal Highness could not get a 
place, as the dilly was booked full. The public carriages of 
Spain are quite as good as those of France, and the company 
who travel in them generally more respectable and better bred. 
This is partly accounted for by the expence : the fares are not 
very high, yet still form a serious item to the bulk of Spaniai'ds ; 
consequently those who travel in the public carriages in Spairi 
are the class who would in other countries travel per post. It 
must, however, be admitted that all travelling in the public con- 
veyances of the continent necessarily implies great discomfort to 
those accustomed to their own carriages ; and with every possible 
precaution the long journeys in Spain, of three to five hundred 
miles at a stretch, are such as few English ladies can undergo, 
and are, even with men, undertakings rather of necessity than 
of pleasure. The mail is organized on the plan of the French 
malle-poste, and offers, to those who can stand the bumping, shak- 
ing, and churning of continued and rapid travelling without halt- 
ing, a means of locomotion which leaves nothing to be desired. 
The diligences also are imitations of the lumbering French 
model. It will be in vain to expect in them the neatness, the 
well-appointed turn-out, the quiet, time-keeping, and infinite 
facilities of the English original. These matters when passed 
across the water are modified to the heroic Continental contempt 
for doing things in style ; cheapness, which is their great prin- 
ciple, prefers rope-traces to those of leather, and a carter to a 
regular coachman ; the usual foreign drags also exist, which 
render their slow coaches and bureaucratic absurdities so hateful 
to free Britons ; but when one is once booked and handed over 
to the conductor, you arrive in due time at the journey's end. 
The " guards" are realities ; they consist of stout, armed, most 
picturesque, robber-like men and no mistake, since many, before 



56 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

they were pardoned and pensioned, have frequently taken a purse 
on the Queen's highway ; for the foreground of your first sketch, 
they are splendid fellows, and worth a score of marshals. They 
are provided with a complete arsenal of swords and blunder- 
busses, so that the cumbrous machine rolling over the sea of 
plains looks like a man-of-war, and has been compared to a 
marching citadel. Again in suspicious localities a mounted escort 
of equally sus,pi.cious look gallops alongside, «or is the primitive 
practice of black mail altogether neglected : the consequence of 
these admirable precautions is, that the diligences are seldom or 
never robbed ; the thing, however, is possible. 

The whole of this garrisoned Noah's ark is placed under the 
command of the Mayoral or conductor, who like all Spanish 
men in authority is a despot, and yet, like them, is open to the 
conciliatory influences of a bribe. He regulates the hours of 
toil and sleep, which latter — blessings, says Sancho, on the man 
who invented it ! — is uncertain, and depends on the early or late 
arrival of the diligence and the state of the roads, for all that is 
lost of the fixed time on the road is made up for by curtailing 
the time allowed for repose. One of the many good effects of 
setting up diligences is the bettering the inns on the road ; and it 
is a safe and general rule to travellers in Spain, whatever be 
their vehicle, always to inquire in every town which is the po- 
sada that the diligence stops at. Persons were dispatched from 
Madrid to the different stations on the great lines, to fit up houses, 
bedrooms, and kitchens, and provide everything for table service ; 
cooks were sent round to teach the innkeepers to set out and pre- 
pare a proper dinner and supper. Thus, in villages in which a 
few years before the use of a fork was scarcely known, a table 
was laid out, clean, well served, and abundant. The example 
set by the diligence inns has produced a beneficial effect, since 
they offer a model, create competition, and suggest the existence 
of many comforts, which were hitherto unknown among Spaniards, 
whose abnegation of material enjoyments at home, and praiseworthy 
endurance of privations of all kinds on journeys, are quite Oriental. 

In some of the new companies every expense is calculated in 
the fare, to wit, journey, postilions, inns, &c., which is very con- 
venient to the stranger, and prevents the loss of much money and 



BEDS FOR TRAVELLERS. 57 

temper. A chapter on the dilly is as much a standing dish in 
every Peninsular tour as a bullfight or a bandit adventure, for 
which there is a continual demand in the home-market ; and no 
doubt in the long distances of Spain, Avhere men and women are 
boxed up for three or four mortal days together (the nights not 
being omitted), the plot thickens, and opportunity is afforded to 
appreciate costume and character ; the farce or tragedy may be 
spun out into as many acts as the journey takes days. In general 
the order of the course is as follows : the breakfast consists at 
early dawn of a cup of good stiff chocolate, which being the favor- 
ite drink of the church and allowable even on fast days, is as nu- 
tritious as delicious. It is accompanied by a bit of roasted or 
fried bread, and is followed by a glass of cold water, to drink 
which is an axiom with all wise men who respect the efficient 
condition of their livers. After rumbling on, over a given num- 
ber of leagues, when the passengers get well shaken together ai^d 
hungry, a regular knife and fork breakfast is provided that closely 
resembles the dinner or supper which is served up later in the 
evening ■ the table is plentiful, and the cookery, to those who like 
oil and garlic, excellent. Those who do not can always fall back 
on the bread and eggs, which are capital ; the wine is occasionally 
like purple blacking, and sometimes serves also as vinegar for the 
salad, as the oil is said to be used indifferently for lamps or stews ; 
a bad dinner, especially if the bill be long, and the wine sour, does 
not sweeten the passengers' tempers ; they become quarrelsome, 
and if they have the good luck, a little robber skirmish gives vent 
to ill-humor. 

At nightfall, after supper, a few hours are allowed on your 
part to steal whatever rest the mayoral and certain voltigeurs, 
creeping and winged, will permit ; the beds are plain and clean ; 
sometimes the mattresses may be compared to sacks of walnuts, 
but there is no pillow so soft as fatigue ; the beds are generally 
arranged in twos, threes, and fours, according to the size of the 
room. The traveller should immediately on arriving secure his, 
and see that it is comfortable, for those who neglect to get a good 
one must sleep in a bad. Generally speaking, by a little man- 
agement, he may get a room to himself, or at least select his com- 
panions. There is, moreover, a real civility and politeness shown 



58 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

by all classes of Spaniards, on all occasions, towards strangers 
and ladies ; and that even failing, a small tip, " una gratijicacionr- 
cita" given beforehand to the maid, or the waiter, seldom fails to 
smooth all difficulties. On these, as on all occasions in Spain, 
inost things may be obtained by good humor, a smile, a joke, a 
proverb, a cigar, or a bribe, which, though last, is by no means 
the least resource, since it will be found to mollify the hardest 
heart and smooth the greatest difficulties, after civil speeches had 
been tried in vain, for Dadivas quehrantan penas, y entra sin har- 
renas, gifts break rocks, and penetrate without gimlets \ again, 
Mas ablanda dinero que -palahras de Cahallero, cash softens more 
than a gentleman's palaver. The mode of driving in Spain, 
which is so unlike our way of handling the ribbons, will be de- 
scribed presently. 

Means of conveyance for those who cannot afford the diligence 
are provided by vehicles of more genuine Spanish nature and dis- 
comfort ; they may be compared to the neat accommodation for 
man and beast which is doled out to third-class passengers by our 
monopolist railway kings, who have usurped her Majesty's high- 
way, and fleece her lieges by virtue of act of Parliament. 

First and foremost comes the galera, which fully justifies its 
name ; and even those who have no value for their time or bones 
will, after a short trial of the rack and dislocation, exclaim : " que 
diahle allais-je faire dans cette gaUre .?" These machines travel 
periodically from town to town, and form the chief public and 
carrier communication between most provincial cities ; they are 
not much changed from that classical cart, the rheda, into which, 
as we read in Juvenal, the whole family of Fabricius was con- 
vejred. In Spain these primitive locomotives have stood still in 
the general advance of this age of progress, and carry us back to 
our James I., and Fynes Mory son's accounts of " carryers who 
have long covered waggons, in which they carry passengers from 
city to city; but this kind of journeying is so tedious, by reason 
they must take waggons very early and come very late to their 
innes, none but women and people of inferior condition used to 
travel in this sort." So it is now in Spain. 

This galera is a long cart without springs ; the sides are lined 
with matting, while beneath hangs a loose open net, as under the 



CARRIAGES AND CARTS. 



calesinas of Naples, ia which lies and barks a horrid dog, who 
keeps a Cerberus watch over iron pots and sieves, and such like 
gipsey utensils, and who is never to be conciliated. These gale- 
ras 'are ox" all sizes ; but if a galera should be a lai'ger sort of 
vehicle than is wanted, then a " tartana," a sort of covered tilted 
cart, which is very common in Valencia, and which is so called 
from a small Mediterranean craft of the same name, will be found 
convenient. 

The packing and departure of the galera, when hired by a 
family who remove their goods, is a thing of Spain ; the heavy 
luggage is stowed in first, and beds and mattresses spread on the 
top, on which the family repose in admired disorder. The galera 
is much used by the " poor students" of Spain, a class unique of 
its kind, and full of rags and impudence ; their adventures have 
the credit of being rich and picturesque, and recall some of the 
accounts of " waggon incidents" in ' Roderick Random,' and 
Smollett's novels. 

Civilization, as connected with the wheel, is still at a low ebb 
in Spain, notwithstanding the numerous political revolutions. 
Except in a few great towns, the quiz vehicles remind us of those 
caricatures at which one laughed so heartily in Paris in 1814; 
and in Madrid, even down to Ferdinand VII. 's decease, the Prado — 
its rotten row — was filled with antediluvian carriages — grotesque 
coachmen and footmen to match, which with us would be put into 
the British Museum ; they are now, alas for painters and authors ! 
worn out, and replaced by poor French imitations of good Eng- 
lish originals. 

As the genuine older Spanish ones were built in remote ages, 
and before the invention of folding steps, the ascent and descent 
were facilitated by a three-legged footstool, which dangled, strap- 
ped up near the door, as appears in the hieroglyphics of Egypt 
4000 years ago ; a pair of long-eared fat mules, with hides and 
tails fantastically cut, was driven by a superannuated postilion in 
formidable jackboots, and not less formidable cocked hat of oil- 
cloth. In these, how often have we seen Spanish grandees with 
pedigrees as old-fashioned, gravely taking the air and dust ! 
These slow coaches of old Spain have been rapidly sketched by 
the clever young American ; such are the ups and downs of na- 



60 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

tions and vehicles. Spain for having discovered America has in 
return become her butt ; she cannot go a-head ; so the great dust 
of Alexander may stop a bung-hole, and we too join in the laugh 
and forget that our ancestors — see Beaumont and Fletcher's 
' Maid of the Inn' — talked of " hurrying on featherbeds that move 
upon four-wheel Spanish earaches." 

While on these wheel subjects it may be observed that the carts 
and other machines of Spanish rural locomotion and husbandry 
have not escaped better ; when not Oriental they are Roman ; 
rude in form and material, they are always odd, picturesque, and 
inconvenient. The peasant, for the most part, scratches the earth 
with a plough modelled after ihat invented by Triptolemus, beats 
out his corn as described by Homer, and carries his harvest home 
in strict obedience to the rules in the Georgics. The iron work 
is iniquitous, but both sides of the Pyrenees are centuries behind 
England ; there, absurd tariffs prohibit the importation of our 
cheap and good work in order to encourage their own bad and 
dear wares — thus poverty and ignorance are perpetuated. 

The carts in the north-west provinces are the unchanged plau- 
stra, with solid wheels, the Roman tympana which consists of 
mere circles of wood, without spokes or axles, much like mill- 
stones or Parmesan cheeses, and precisely such as the old Egypt- 
ians used, as is seen in hieroglyphics, and no doubt much resem- 
bling those sent by Joseph for his father, which are still used by 
the Affghans and other unadvanced coachmakers. The whole 
wheel turns round together with a piteous creaking ; the drivers, 
whose leathern ears are as blunt as their edgeless teeth, delight 
in this excruciating Chirrio, Arabice charrar, to make a noise, 
which they call music, and delight in, because it is cheap and 
plays to them of itself: they, moreover, think it frightens wolves, 
bears, and the devil himself, as Don Quixote says, which it well 
may, for the wheel of Ixion, although damned in hell, never 
whined more piteously. The doleful sounds, however, serve like 
our waggoners' lively bells, as warnings to other drivers, who, in 
narrow paths and gorges of rocks, where two carriages cannot 
pass, have this notice given them, and draw aside until the coast 
is clear. 

We have reserved some details and the mode of driving for the 



THE COCHE DE COLLERAS. 



cache de coUeras, the caroche of horse-collars, which is the real 
coach of Spain, and in which we have made many a pleasant 
trip ; it too is doomed to be scheduled away, for Spaniards are 
descending from these coaches and six to a chariot and pair, and 
by degrees beautifully less, to a fly. 

Mails and diligences, we have said, are only established on the 
principal high roads connected with Madrid : there are but kw 
local coaches which run from one provincial town to another, 
where the necessity of frequent and certain intercommunication is 
little called for. In the other provinces, where these modern 
conveniences have not been introduced, the earlier mode of travel- 
ling is the only resource left to families of children, women, and 
invalids, who are unable to perform the journey on horseback. 
This is the festina lente, or voiturier system ; and from its long 
continuance in Italy and Spain, in spite of all the improvements 
adopted in other countries, it vvould appear to have something con- 
genial and peculiarly fitted to the habits and wants of those cog- 
nate nations of the south, who have a Goth-Oriental dislike to be 
hurried — no corre priesa, there is plenty of time. Sie haben zeit 
genug. 

The Spanish vetturino, or " Calesero,^'' is to be found, as in 
Italy, standing for hire in particular and well-known places in 
every principal town. There is not much necessity for hunting 
for Am; he has the Italian instinctive perception of a stranger 
and traveller, and the same importunity in volunteering himself, 
his cattle, and carriage, for any part of Spain. The man, how- 
ever, and his equipage are peculiarly Spanish ; his carriage and 
his team have undergone little change during the last two cen- 
turies, and are the representatives of the former ones of Europe ; 
they resemble those vehicles once used in England, which may 
still be seen in the old prints of country-houses by Kip ; or, as 
regards France, in the pictures of Louis XIV. 's journeys and 
campaigns by Vandermeulen. They are the remnant of the 
once universal " coach and six," in which according to Pope, 
who was not infallible, British fair were to delight for ever. 
The "coche de colleras" is a huge cumbrous machine, built after 
the fashion of a reduced lord mayor's coach, or some of the 
e<iuipages o^ the old cardinals at Rome. It is ornamented with 



62 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

rude sculpture, gilding, and painting of glaring color, but the 
modern pea-jacket and round hat spoil the picture which requires 
passengers dressed in brocade and full-bottomed wigs ; the fore- 
wheels are very low, the hind ones very high, and both remark- 
ably narrow in the tire ; remember when they stick in the mud, 
and the drivers call upon Santiago, to push the vehicle out hack- 
wards, as the more you draw it forwards the deeper you get into 
the mire. The pole sticks out like the bowsprit of a ship, and 
contains as much wood and iron work as would go to a small 
waggon. The interior is lined with gay silk and gaudy plush, 
adorned with lace and embroidery, with doors that open indiffer- 
ently and windows that do not shut well ; latterly the general 
poverty and prose of transpyrenean civilization has effaced much 
of these ornate nationalities, both in coach and drivers ; better 
roads and lighter vehicles require fewer horses, which were ab- 
solutely necessary formerly to drag the heavy concern through 
heavier ways. 

The luggage is piled up behind, or stowed away in a front 
boot. The management of driving this vehicle is conducted by 
two persons. The master is called the " mayoral y" his helper or 
cad the " mozo," or, more properly, " el zagal," from the Arabic, 
" a strong active youth." The costume is peculiar, and is based 
on that of Andalucia, which sets the fashion all over the Penin- 
sula, in all matters regarding bull-fighting, horse-dealing, robbing, 
smuggling, and so forth. He wears on his head a gay-colored 
silk handkerchief, tied in such a manner that the tails hang down 
behind ; over this remnant of the Moorish turban he places a 
high-peaked sugarloaf-shaped hat with broad brims ; his jaunty 
jacket is made either of black sheepskin, studded with silver tags 
and filigree buttons, or of brown cloth, with tlie back, arms, and 
particularly the elbows, welted and tricked out with flowers and 
vases, cut in patches of different-colored cloth and much em- 
broidered. When the jacket is not worn, it is usually hung over 
the left shoulder, after the hussar fashion. The waistcoat is 
made of rich fancy silk ; the breeches of blue or green velvet 
plush, ornamented with stripes and filigree buttons, and tied at 
the knee with silken cords and tassels ; the neck is left open, and 
the shirt collar turned down, and a gaudy neck-handkerchief is 



THE ZAGAL. 63 



worn, oftener passed through a ring than tied in a knot ; his 
waist is girt with a red sash, or with one of a bright yellow. 
This '■'■ faja,^''* a sine qua non, is the old Roman zona ; it serves 
also for a purse, " girds the loins," and keeps up a warmth over 
the abdomen, which is highly beneficial in hot climates, and 
wards off any tendency to irritable colic ; in the sash is stuck the 
" navaja,^' the knife, which is part and parcel of a Spaniard, and 
behind the " zagaV usually places his stick. The richly em- 
broidered gaiters are left open at the outside to show a handsome 
stocking ; the shoes are yellow like those of our cricketers, and 
are generally made of untanned calfskin, which being the color 
of dust require no cleaning. The caleseros on the eastern coast 
wear the Valencian stocking, which has no feet to it — being 
open at bottom_^ it is likened by wags to a Spaniard's purse ; in- 
stead of top boots they wear the ancient Roman sandals, made of 
the esparto rush, with hempen soles, which are called " alparga- 
tas,'' Arabice Alpalgah, The " zagaV follows the fashion in 
dress of the '■^mayoral,'' as nearly as his means will permit him. 
He is the servant of all-work, and must be ready on every occa- 
sion ; nor can any one who has ever seen the hard and inces- 
sant toil which these men undergo, justly accuse them of being 
indolent — a reproach which has been cast somewhat indiscrimi- 
nately on all the lower classes of Spain ; he runs by the side 
of the carriage, picks up stones to pelt the mules, ties and unties 
knots, and pours forth a volley of blows and oaths from the mo- 
ment of starting to that of arrival. He sometimes is indulged 
with a ride by the side of the mayoral on the box, when he al- 
ways uses the tail of the hind mule to pull himself up into his 
seat. The harnessing the six animals is a difficult operation ; first 
the tackle of ropes is laid out on the ground, then each beast is 
brought into his portion of the rigging. The start is always an 
important ceremony, and, as our royal mail used to do in the 

* Faja : the Hhezum of Cairo. Atrides tiglitens his sash when preparing 
for action — Iliad xi. 15. The Roman soldiers kept their money in it. Ibit 
qui zonam perdidit. — Hor. ii. Ep. 2. 40. The Jews used it for the same pur- 
pose—Matthew X. 9 ; Mark vi, 8. It is loosened at night. " None shall 
slumber or sleep, neither shall the girdle of their loins be loosed." Isaiah 
v,27. 



64 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

country, brings out all the idlers in the vicinity. When the team 
is harnessed, the mayoral gets all his skeins of ropes into his 
hand, the " zagaV his sash full of stones, the helpers at the venta 
their sticks ; at a given signal all fire a volley of oaths and 
blows at the team, which, once in motion, away it goes, pitching 
over ruts deep as routine prejudices, with its pole dipping and 
rising like a ship in a rolling sea, and continues at a brisk pace, 
performing from twenty-five to thirty miles a-day. The hours of 
starting are early, in order to avoid the mid-day heat ; in these 
matters the Spanish customs are pretty much the same with the 
Italian ; the calesero is always the best judge of the hours of de- 
parture and these minor details, which vary according to circum- 
stances. 

Whenever a particularly bad bit of road occurs, notice is given 
to the team by calling over their names, and by crying out 
" arr^, arr^,'' gee-up, which is varied with "Jlrm^, Jirm^," 
steady, boy, steady ! The names of the animals are always 
fine-sounding and polysyllabic ; the accent is laid on the last 
syllable, which is always dwelt on and lengthened out with a 
particular emphasis — Cdpitdna-d — Bdndolerd-d — Gentrdld-d — 
Vdlerosd-d. All this vocal driving is performed at the top of 
the voice, and, indeed, next to scaring away crows in a field, 
must be considered the best possible practice for the lungs. The 
team often exceeds six in number, ancl never is less ; the propor- 
tion of females predominates : there is generally one male mule 
making the seventh, who is called " el macho,''' the male par excel- 
lence, like the Grand Turk, or a substantive in a speech in Cortes, 
which seldom has less than half a dozen epithets : he invariably 
comes in for the largest share of abuse and ill usage, which, in- 
deed, he deserves the most, as the male mule is infinitely more 
stubborn and viciously inclined than the female. Sometimes 
there is a horse of the Rosinante breed ; he is called " el cavallo'' 
or rather, as it is pronounced, " eZ cdvdl-y6-6." The horse is 
always the best used of the team ; to be a rider, " cahallero," 
is the Spaniard's synonym for gentleman ; and it is their correct 
mode of addressing each other, and is banded gravely among 
the lower orders, who never have crossed any quadruped save a 
mule or a jackass. 



SWEARING. 



The driving a coche de coUeras is quite a science of itself, and 
is observed in conducting diligences ; it amuses the Spanish 
" majo^' or fancy-man as much as coach-driving does the fancy- 
man of England ; the great art lies not in handling the ribbons, 
but in the proper modulation of the voice, since the cattle are 
always addressed individually by their names ; the first syllables 
are pronounced very rapidly; the ^' macho," the male mule, who 
is the most abused, is the only one who is not addressed by any 
names beyond that of his sex : the word is repeated with a volu- 
ble iteration ; in order to make the two syllables longer, they 
are strung together thus, macho — macho — macho — mdcho-6 : 
they begin in semiquavers, flowing on crescendo to a semibreve 
or breve, so the four words are compounded into one polysyllable. 
The horse, cahallo, is simply called so ; he has no particular name 
of his own, which the female mules are never without, and which 
they perfectly know — indeed, the owners will say that they under- 
stand theni, and all bad language, as well as Christian women, 
" como Christianas ;" and, to do the beasts justice, they seem more 
shocked and discomfited thereby than the bipeds who profess the 
same creed. If the animal called to does not answer by pricking 
up her ears, or by quickening her pace, the threat of " la vara," 
the stick, is added — the last argument of Spanish drivers, men in 
office, and schoolmasters, with whom there is no sort of reason 
equal to that of the bastinado, " no hay tal razon, com,o la del 
laston." It operates on the timorous more than "unadorned 
eloquence." The Moors thought so highly of the bastinado, that 
they held the stick to be a special gift from Allah to the faith- 
ful. It holds good, a priori and a posteriori, to mule and boy, 
" al hijo y mulo, para el culo y" and if the " macho" be in 
fault, and he is generally punished to encourage the others, some 
abuse is added to blows, such as " que perro-o," "what a dog !" 
or some unhandsome allusion to his mother, which is followed 
by throwing a stone at the leaders, for no whip could reach 
them from the coach-box. When any particular mule's name is 
called, if her companion be the next one to be abused, she is 
seldom addressed by her name, but is spoken to as " a la 6trd-d," 
" aquella 6trd-d," " Now for that other one," which from long 
association is expected and acknowledged. The team obeys the 



66 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

voice and is an admirable command. Few tilings are more 
entertaining than driving them, especially over bad roads ; but 
it requires much practice in Spanish speaking and swearing. 

Among the many commandments that are always broken in 
Spain, that of " swear not at all " is not the least. " Our army 
swore lustily in Flanders," said Uncle Toby. But few nations 
can surpass the Spaniards in the language of vituperation : it is 
limited only by the extent of their anatomical, geographical, 
astronomical, and religious knowledge ; it is so plentifully be- 
stowed on their animals — " un muletier a ce jeu vaut trois rois " 
— that oaths and imprecations seem to be considered as the only 
language the mute creation can comprehend ; and as actions are 
generally suited to the words, the combination is remarkably 
effective. As much of the traveller's time on the road must be 
passed among beasts and muleteers, who are not unlike them, 
some knowledge of their sayings and doings is of great use : to 
be able to talk to them in their own lingo, to take an, interest in 
them and in their animals, never fails to please ; " For vida del 
demonio, mas sabe TJsia que nosotros ;" " by the life of the devil, 
your honor knows more than we," is a common form of compli- 
ment. When once equality is established, the master mind soon 
becomes the real master of the rest. The great oath of Spain, 
which ought never to be written or pronounced, practically forms 
the foundation of the language of the lower orders ; it is a most 
ancient remnant of the phallic abjuration of the evil eye, the 
dreaded fascination which still perplexes the minds of Orientals, 
and is not banished from Spanish and Neapolitan superstitions.* 

^ The dread of the fascination of the evil eye, from which Solomon was 
not exempt (Proverbs xxiii. 6), prevails all over the East; it has not been 
extirpated from Spain or from Naples, which so long belonged to Spain. 
The lower classes in the Peninsula hang round the necks of theii' children 
and cattle, a horn tipped with silver ; this is sold as an amulet in the silver- 
smiths' shops; the cord by which it is attached, ought to be braided from a 
'black mare's tale. The Spanish gipsies, of whom Borrow has given us so 
complete an account, thrive by disarming the mal de ojo, " qiterehr nasula^^ 
as they term it. The dread of the '■ Ain ara^^ exists among all classes of 
the Moors. The better classes of Spaniards make a joke of it ; and often, 
when you remark thataperson has put on or wears something strange about 
him the answer is, " Ex jmra que no me hagmi mal de ojoP Naples is the 



HINTS FOR HIRING. 67 

The word terminates in ajo, on which great stress is laid : the j 
is pronounced with a most Arabic, guttural aspiration. The 
word ajo means also garlic, which is quite as often in Spanish 
mouths, and is exactly what Hotspur liked, a " mouth-filling oath," 
energetic and Michael Angelesque. The pun has been extended 
to onions; thus, " ajo5 y cehollas" means oaths and imprecations. 
The sting of the oath is in the " ajo ;'' all women and quiet men, 
who do not wish to be particularly objuratory, but merely to en- 
force and give a little additional vigor, un soupQon d'ail, or a 
shotting to their discourse, drop the offensive " ajo," and say, 
"car," " carai," " caramha." The Spanish oath is used as a verb, 
as a substantive, as an adjective, just as it suits the grammar or 
the wrath of the utterer. It is equivalent also to a certain place 
and the person who lives there. " Vaya listed al C — ajo, is the 
worst form of the angry " Vaya listed al demonio," or " a los 
injiernos," and is a whimsical mixture of courtesy and transpor- 
tation. " Your Grace may go to the devil, or to the infernal 
regions !" 

Thus, these imprecatory vegetables retain in Spain their old 
Egyptian flavor and mystical charm ; as on the Nile, according 
to Pliny, onions and garlic were worshipped as adjuratory divini- 
ties. The Spaniards have also added most of the gloomy northern 
Gothic oaths, which are imprecatory, to the Oriental, which are 
grossly sensual. Enough of this. The traveller who has much 
to do with Spanish mules and asses, biped or quadruped, will need 
no handbook to teach them the sixty-five or more " serments 
espaignols" on which Mons. de Brantome wrote a treatise. More 
becoming will it be to the English gentleman to swear not at all ; 
a reasonable indulgence in Caramba is all that can be permitted ; 
the custom is more honored in the breach than in the observance, 
and bad luck seldom deserts the house of the imprecator. " En 
la casa del que jura, nofalta desaventura." 

Previously to hiring one of these " coaches of collars," which 
is rather an expensive amusement, every possible precaution 
should be taken in clearly and minutely specifying everything to 
be done, and the price ; the Spanish " caleseros " rival their 

head-quarters for charms and coral amulets : all the learning has been col- 
lected by the Canon Jorio and the Marques Arditi. 



68 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

Italian colleagues in that untruth, roguery, and dishonesty, which 
seem everywhere to combine readily with jockyeship, and distin- 
guishes those who handle the whip, " do jobbings," and conduct 
mortals by horses ; the fee to be given to the drivers should never 
be included in the bargain, as the keeping this important item 
open and dependent on the good behavior of the future recipients 
offers a sure check over master and man, and other road-classes. 
In justice, however, to this class of Spaniards, it may be said that 
on the whole they are civil, good-humored, and hard-working, 
and, from not having been accustomed to either the screw bargain- 
ing or alternate extravagance of the English travellers in Italy, 
are as tolerably fair in their transactions as can be expected from 
human nature brought in constant contact with four-legged and 
four-wheeled temptations. They offer to the artist an endless 
subject of the picturesque; everything connected with them 
is full of form, color, and originality. They can do nothing, 
whether sitting, driving, sleeping or eating, that does not make a 
picture ; the same may be said of their animals and their habits 
and harness ; those who draw will never find the midday halt long 
enough for the infinite variety of subject and scenery to which 
their travelling equipage and attendants form the most peculiar 
and appropriate foreground : while our modern poetasters will 
consider them quite as worthy of being sung in immortal verse 
as the Cambridge carrier Hobson, who was Milton's choice. 



THE ANDALUCIAN HORSE. 



CHAPTER VII. 



Spanish Horses — Mules — Asses — Muleteers — Maragatos. 

We now proceed to Spanish quadrupeds, having placed the 
wheel-carriages before the horses. That of Andalucia takes pre- 
cedence of all ; he fetches the highest pi'ice, and the Spaniards in 
general value no other breed ; they consider his configuration 
and qualities as perfect, and in some respects they are right, for 
no horse is more elegant or more easy in his motions, none are 
more gentle or docile, none are more quick in acquiring showy 
accomplishments, or in performing feats of Astleyan agility ; he 
has very little in common with the English blood-horse ; his mane 
is soft and silky, and is frequently plaited with gay ribbons ; his 
tail is of great length, and left in all the proportions of nature, not 
cropped and docked, by which Voltaire was so much offended : — 

" Fiers et bizarres Anglais, qui des memes ciseaux 
Coupez la tete aux rois, et la queue aux chevaux." 

It often trails to the very ground, while the animal has perfect 
command over it, lashing it on every side as a gentleman switches 
his cane ; therefore, when on a journey, it is usual to double and 
tie it up, after the fashion of the ancient pig-tails of our sailors. 
The Andalucian horse is round in his quarters, though inclined to 
be small in the barrel ; he is broad-chested, and always carries 
his head high, especially when going a good pace ; his length of 
leg adds to his height, which sometimes reaches to sixteen hands ; 
he never, however, stretches out with the long graceful sweep of 
the English thorough-bred ; his action is apt to be loose and 
shambling, and he is given to dishing with the feet. The pace is, 
notwithstanding, perfectly delightful. From being very long in 
the pastern, the motion is broken as it were by the springs of a 
carriage; their pace is the peculiar " paso Castellano" which is 



70 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

something more than a walk, and less than a trot, and is truly se- 
date and sedan-chair like, and suits a grave Don, who is given, 
like a Turk, to tobacco and contemplation. Those Andalucian 
horses which fall when young into the hands of the officers at 
Gibraltar acquire a very different action, and lay themselves bet- 
ter down to their work, and gain much more in speed from the 
English system of training than they would have done had they 
been managed by Spaniards. Taught or untaught, this pace is 
most gentlemanlike, and well did Beaumont and Fletcher 

" Think it noble, as Spaniards do in riding, 
In managing a great horse, which is princely ;" 

and as has been said, is the only attitude in which the kings of 
the Spains, true cpdmnoi, ought ever to be painted, witching the 
world with noble horsemanship. 

Many other provinces possess breeds which are more useful, 
though far less showy, than the Andalucian. The horse of Cas- 
tile is a strong, hardy animal, and the best which Spain produces 
for mounting heavy cavalry. The ponies of Gallicia, although 
ugly and uncouth, are admirably suited to the wild hilly country 
and laborious population ; they require very little care or groom- 
ing, and are satisfied with coarse food and Indian corn. The 
horses of Navarre, once so celebrated, are still esteemed for their 
hardy strength ; they have, from neglect, degenerated into ponies, 
which, however, are beautiful in form, hardy, docile, sure-footed, 
and excellent trotters. In most of the large towns of Spain there 
is a sort of market, where horses are publicly sold; but Ronda 
fair, in May, is the great Howden and Horncastle of the four 
provinces of Seville, Cordova, Jaen, and Granada, and the resort 
of all the picturesque-looking rogues of the south. The reader 
of Don Quixote need not be told that the race of Gines Passa- 
monte is not extinct ; the Spanish Chalanes, or horse-dealers, have 
considerable talents ; but the cleverest is but a mere child when 
compared to the perfection of rascality to which a real English 
professor has attained in the mysteries of lying, chaunting, and 
making up a horse. 

The breeding of horses was carefully attended to by the Span- 
ish government previously to the invasion of the French, by whom 



MULES. 



the entire horses and brood-mares were either killed or stolen, and 
the buildings and stables burnt. 

The saddles used commonly in Spain are Moorish ; they are 
made with high peak and croup behind ; the stirrup-irons are 
large triangularly-shaped boxes. The food is equally Oriental, 
and consists of " barley and straw," as mentioned in the Bible. 
We well I'emember the horror of our Andalucian groom, on our 
first reaching Gallicia, when he rushed in, exclaiming that the 
beasts would perish, as nothing was to be had there but oats and 
hay. After some difficulty he was persuaded to see if they would 
eat it, which to his surprise they actually did ; such, however, is 
habit, that they soon fell out of condition, and did not recover 
until the damp mountains were quitted for the arid plains of 
Castile. 

Spaniards in general prefer mules and asses to the horse, 
which is more delicate, requires greater attention, and is less 
sure-footed over bi'oken and precipitous ground. The mule per- 
forms in Spain the functions of the camel in the East, and has 
something in his morale (besides his physical suitableness to. the 
country) which is congenial to the character of his masters ; he 
has the same self-willed obstinacy, the same resignation under 
burdens, the same singular capability of endurance of labor, 
fatigue, and privation. The mule has always been much used in 
Spain, and the demand for them very great ; yet, from some mis- 
taken crotchet of Spanish political economy (which is very 
Spanish,) the breeding of the mule has long been attempted to be 
prevented, in order to encourage that of the horse. One of the 
reasons alleged was, that the mule was a non-reproductive animal ; 
an argument which might or ought to apply equally to the monk ; 
a breed for which Spain could have shown for the first prize, both 
as to number and size, against any other country in all Christen- 
dom. This attempt to force the production of an animal far less 
suited to the wants and habits of the people has failed, as might 
be expected. The difficulties thrown in the way have only 
tended to raise the prices of mules, which are, and always were, 
very dear ; a good mule will fetch from 25Z. to 50Z., while a 
horse of relative goodness may be purchased for from 20?. to 40?. 
Mules were always very dear j thus Martial, like a true An- 



72 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

dalucian Spaniard, talks of one which cost more tiaan a house 
The most esteemed are those bred from the mare and the ass, or 
"garanon,"* some of which are of extraordinary size; and one 
which Don Carlos had in his stud-house at Aranjuez in 1832 ex- 
ceeded fifteen hands in height. This colossal ass and a Spanish 
infante were worthy of each other. 

The mules in Spain, as in the East, have their coats closely 
shorn or clipped ; part of the hair is usually left on in stripes 
like the zebra, or cut into fanciful patterns, like the tattooings of 
a New Zealand chief. This process of shearing is found to keep 
the beast cooler and freer from cutaneous disorders. The opera- 
tion is performed in the southern provinces by gipsies, who are 
the same tinkers, horse-dealers, and vagrants in Spain as else- 
where. Their clipping recalls the " mulo curto," on which 
Horace could amble even to Brundusium. The operators rival 
in talent those worthy Frenchmen who cut the hair of poodles on 
the Pont Neuf, in the heart and brain of European civilization. 
Their Spanish colleagues may be known by the shears, formida- 
ble and classical-shaped as those of Lachesis and her sisters, 
which they carry in their sashes. They are very particular in 
clipping the heels and patterns, which they say ought to be as 
free from superfluous hair as the palm of a lady's hand. 

Spanish asses have been inmiortalized by Cervantes ; they are 
endeared to us by Sancho's love and talent of imitation ; he 
brayed so well, be it remembered, that all the long-eared chorus 
joined a performer who, in his own modest phrase, only wanted 
a tail to be a perfect donkey. Spanish mayors, according to Don 
Quixote, have a natural talent for this braying ; but, save and 
except in the west of England, their right worshipfuls may be 
matched elsewhere. 

The humble ass, " hurro," " borrico," is the rule, the as in 
prsesenti, and part and parcel of every Spanish scene : he forms 
the appropriate foreground in streets or roads. Wherever two or 

* The gararion is also called '^ burro padre," ass father, not ^^ padre burro." 
" Padrej" the prefix of paternity, is the common title given in Spain to the 
clergy and the monks. " Father jackass" might in many instances, -when 
applied to the latter, be too morally and physically appropriate, to be con- 
sistent with the respect due to the celibate cowl and cassock. 



ASSES OF LA MANCHA. 73 

three Spaniards are collected together in market, junta, or " congre- 
gation," there is quite sure to be an ass among them ; he is the 
hard worked companion of the lower orders, to whom to work is 
the greatest misfortune ; sufferance is indeed the common virtue 
of both tribes. They may, perhaps, both wince a little when a 
new burden or a new tax is laid on them by Senor Mon, but they 
soon, when they see that there is no remedy, bear on and endure : 
from this fellow-feeling, master and animal cherish each other at 
heart, though, from the blows and imprecations bestowed openly, 
the former may be thought by hasty observers to be ashamed of 
confessing these predilections in public. Some under-current, 
no doubt, remains in the ancient prejudices of chivalry ; but 
Cervantes, who thoroughly understood human nature in general, 
and Spanish nature in particular, has most justly dwelt on the 
dear love which Sancho Panza felt for his " Rucio," and marked 
the reciprocity of the brute, affectionate as intelligent. In fact, 
in the Sagra district, near Toledo, he is called El vecino, one of 
the householders ; and none can look a Spanish ass in the face 
without remarking a peculiar expression, which indicates that the 
hairy fool considers himself, like the pig in a cabin of the "first 
gem of the sea," to be one of the family, de la familia, or de 
nosoiros. La Mancha is the paradise of mules and asses ; many 
a Sancho at this moment is there fondling and embracing his ass, 
his " chato chatlto," " romo," or other complimentary variations 
of Snub, with which, when not abusing him, he delights to nick- 
name his helpmate. In Spain, as Sappho says, Love is yAu;«u. 
niy-QOf, an alteration of the agro-dolce ; nor is there any Preven- 
tion of Cruelty Society towards animals ; every Spaniard has the 
same right in law and equity to kick and beat his own ass to his 
own liking, as a philanthropic Yankee has to wallop his own 
niggar ; no one ever thinks of interposing on these occasions, any 
more than they would in a quarrel between a man and his wife. 
The words are, at all events, on one side. It is, however, record- 
ed in piam memoriam, of certain Roman Catholic asses of Spain, 
that they tried to throw off one Tomas Trebino and some other 
heretics, when on their way to be burnt, being horror-struck at 
bearing such monsters. Every Spanish peasant is heart-broken 
when injury is done to his ass, as well he may be, for it is the 

PART I. 5 



74 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

means by which he lives ; nor has he much chance, if he loses 
him, of finding a crown when hunting for him, as was once done, 
or even a government like Sancho. Sterne would have done bet- 
ter to have laid the venue of his sentimentalities over a dead ass 
in Spain, rather than in France, where the quadruped species is 
much rarer. In Spain, where small carts and wheelbarrows are 
almost unknown, and the drawing them is considered as beneath 
the dignity of the Spanish man, the substitute, an ass, is in constant 
employ ; sometimes it is laden with sacks of corn, with wine-skins, 
with water-jars, with dung or with dead robbers, slung like sacks 
over the back, their arms and legs tied under the animal's belly. 
Asses' milk, " leclie de hurra," is in much request during the spring 
season. The brown sex drink it in order to fine their complex- 
ions and cool their blood, " refrescar la sangre ;" the clergy and 
men in office, "fos einpleados," to wliom it is mother's milk, 
swallow it in order that it may give tone to their gastric juices. 
Riding on assback was accounted a disgrace and a degradation to 
the Gothic hidalgo, and the Spaniards, in the sixteenth century, 
mounted unrepining cuckolds, " los cornudos pacientes," on asses. 
Now-a-days, in spite of all these unpleasant associations, the 
grandees and their wives, and even grave ambassadors from for- 
eign parts, during the royal residence at Aranjuez, much delight 
in elevating themselves on this beast of ill omen, and " horricadas" 
or donkey parties are all the fashion. 

The muleteer of Spain is justly renowned ; his generic term 
is arriero, a gee-uper, for his arre arre is pure Arabic, as indeed 
are almost all the terms connected with his craft, as the Moris- 
coes were long the great carriers of Spain. To travel with the 
muleteer, when the party is small or a person is alone, is botli 
cheap and safe ; indeed, many of the most picturesque portions of 
Spain, Ronda and Granada, for instance, can scarcely be reached 
except by walking or riding. These men, who are constantly 
on the road, and going backwards and forwards, are the best per- 
sons to consult for details ; their animals are generally to be 
hired, but a muleteer's stud is not pleasant to ride, since their 
beasts always travel in single files. The leading animal is fur- 
nished with a copper bell with a wooden clapper, to give notice 
of their march, which is shaped like an ice-mould, sometimes two 



THE MULETEER. 75 



feet long, and hangs from the neck, being contrived, as it were, on 
purpose to knock the animal's knees as much as possible, and to 
emit the greatest quantity of the most melancholy sounds, which, 
according to the pious origin of all bells, were meant to scare 
away the Evil One. The bearer of all this tintinnabular clatter 
is chosen from its superior docility and knack in picking out a 
way. The others follow their leader, and the noise he makes 
when they cannot see him. They are heavily but scientifically 
laden. The cargo of each is divided into three portions ; one 
is tied on each side, and the other placed between. If the cargo 
be not nicely balanced, the muleteer either unloads or adds a few 
stones to the lighter portion — the additional weight being com- 
pensated by the greater comfort with which a well-poised burden 
is carried. These " sumpter" mules are gaily decorated with 
trappings full of color and tags. The head-gear is composed of 
different colored worsteds, to which a multitude of small bells are 
affixed ; hence the saying, " muger de mucha cmnpanillaj'^ a wo- 
man of many bells, of much show, much noise, or pretension. 
The muleteer either walks by the side of his animal or sits aloft 
on the cargo, with his feet dangling on the neck, a seat which is 
by no means so uncomfortable as it would appear. A rude gun, 
" but 'twill serve," and is loaded wth slugs, hangs always in 
readiness by his side, and often with it a guitar ; these emblems 
of life and death paint the unchanged reckless condition of Iberia, 
where extremes have ever met, where a man still goes out of the 
world like a swan, with a song. Thus accoutred, as Byron says, 
with " all that gave, promise of pleasure or a grave," the ap- 
proach of the caravan is announced from afar by his cracked or 
guttural voice : " How carols now the lusty muleteer !" For 
when not engaged in swearing or smoking, the livelong day is 
passed in one monotonous high-pitched song, the tune of which is 
little in harmony with the import of the words, or his cheerful 
humor, being most unmusical and melancholy ; but such is the 
true type of Oriental melody, as it is called. The same absence 
of thought which is shown in England by whistling is displayed 
in Spain by singing. "Qm'en canta sus males espanta :" he who 
sings frightens away ills, a philosophic consolation in travel as 
old and as classical as Virgil : " Cantantes licet usque, minus via 



76 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

tsedet, eamus," which may be thus translated for the benefit of 
country gentlemen : — 

If we join in doleful chorus, 

The dull highway will much less bore us. 

The Spanish muleteer is a fine fellow ; he is intelligent, active 
and enduring ; he braves hunger and thirst, heat and cold, mud 
and dust ; he works as hard as his cattle, never robs or is robbed ; 
and while his betters in this land put off" everything till to-morrow 
except bankruptcy, he is punctual and honest, his frame is wiry 
and sinewy, his costume peculiar ; many are the leagues and 
long, which we have ridden in his caravan, and longer his robber 
yarns, to which we paid no attention ; and it must be admitted 
that these cavalcades are truly national and picturesque. Min- 
gled with droves of mules and mounted horsenaen, the z'g-zag 
lines come threading down the mountain defiles, now tracking 
through the aromatic brushwood, now concealed amid rocks and 
olive-trees, now emerging bright and glittering into the sunshine, 
giving life and movement to the lonely nature, and breaking the 
usual stillness by the tinkle of the oej:! and the sad ditty of the 
muleteer — sounds which, though unmusical in themselves, are in 
keeping with the scene, and associated with wild Spanish ram- 
bles, just as the harsh whetting of the scythe is mixed up with the 
sweet spring and newly-mown hay-meadow. 

There is one class of muleteers which are but little known to 
European travellers — the Maragatos, whose head-quarters are at 
San Roman, near Astorga ; they, like the Jew and gipsy, live 
exclusively among their own people, preserving their primeval 
costume and customs, and never marrying out of their own tribe. 
They are as perfectly nomad and wandering as the Bedouins, the 
mule only being substituted for the camel ; their honesty and in- 
dustry are proverbial. They are a sedate, grave, dry, matter-of- 
fact, business-like people. Their charges are high, but the se- 
curity counterbalances, as they may be trusted with untold gold. 
They are the channels of all traffic between Gallicia and the 
Castiles, being seldom seen in the south or east provinces. They 
are dressed in leathern jerkins, which fit tightly like a cuirass, 
leaving the arms free. Their linen is coarse but white, espe- 



COSTUME OF THE MARAGATOS. 



cially the shirt collar ; a broad leather belt, in which there is a 
purse, is fastened round the waist. Their breeches, like those 
of the Valencians, are called Zaraguelles, a pure Arabic word 
for kilts or wide drawers, and no burgomaster of Rembrandt is 
more broad-bottomed. Their legs are encased in long brown 
cloth gaiters, with red garters ; their hair is generally cut close 
— sometimes, however, strange tufts are left. A huge, slouch- 
ing, ilapping hat completes the most inconvenient of travelling 
dresses, and it is too Dutch to be even picturesque ; but these 
fashions are as unchangeable as the laws of the Medes and Per- 
sians were ; nor will any Maragato dream of altering his costume 
until those dressed models of painted wood do which strike the 
hours of the clock on the square of Astorga ; Pedro Mato, also, 
another figure costum^e, who holds a weathercock at the cathe- 
dral, is the observed of all observers ; and, in truth, this particu- 
lar costume is, as that of Quakers used to be, a guarantee of their 
tribe and respectability ; thus even Cordero, the rich Maragato 
deputy, appeared in Cortes in this local costume. 

The dress of the Maragata is equally peculiar; she wears, if 
married, a sort of head-gear. El Caramiello, in the shape of a 
crescent, the round part coming over the forehead, which is very 
Moorish, and resembles those of the females in the basso-rilievos 
at Granada. Their hair flows loosely on their shoulders, while 
their apron or petticoat hangs down open before and behind, and 
is curiously tied at the back with a sash, and their bodice is cut 
square over the bosom. At their festivals they are covered with 
ornaments of long chains of coral and metal, with crosses, relics, 
and medals in silver. Their earrings are very heavy, and sup- 
ported by silken threads, as among the Jewesses in Barbary, A 
marriage is a grand feast ; then large parties assemble, and a 
president is chosen, who puts into a waiter whatever sum of 
money fie likes, and all invited must then give as much. The 
bride is enveloped in a mantle, which she wears the whole day, 
and never again except on that of her husband's death. She 
does not dance at the wedding-ball. Early next morning two 
roast chickens are brought to the bed-side of the happy pair. 
The next evening ball is opened by the bride and her husband, 
to the tune of the gaita, or Moorish bagpipe. Their dances are 



78 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

grave and serious ; such indeed is their whole character. The 
Maragatos, with their honest, weather-beaten countenances, are 
seen with files of mules all along the high road to La Coruna. 
They generally walk, and, like other Spanish arrieros, although 
they sing and curse rather less, are employed in one ceaseless 
shower of stones and blows at their mules. 

The whole tribe assembles twice a year at Astorga, at the 
feasts of Corpus and the Ascension, when they dance El Canizo, 
beginning at two o'clock in the afternoon, and ending precisely 
at three. If any one not a Maragato joins, they all leave off im- 
mediately. The women never wander from their homes, which 
their undomestic husbands always do. They lead the hardworked 
life of the Iberian females of old, and now, as then, are to be seen 
everywhere in these west provinces toiling in the fields, early 
before the sun has risen, and late after it has set ; and it is most 
painful to behold them drudging at these unfeminine vocations. 

The origin of the Maragatos has never been ascertained. Some 
consider them to be a remnant of the Celtiberian, others of the 
Visigoths ; most, however, prefer a Bedouin, or caravan descent. 
It is in vain to question these ignorant carriers as to their history 
or origin ; for like the gipsies, they have no traditions, and know 
nothing. Arrieros, at all events, they are; and that word, in 
common with so many others relating to the barb and carrier-cara- 
van craft, is Arabic, and proves whence the system and science 
were derived by Spaniards. 

The Maragatos are celebrated for their fine beasts of burden ; 
indeed the mules of Leon are renowned, and the asses splendid 
and numerous, especially the nearer one approaches to the learned 
university of Salamanca. The Maragatos take precedence on 
the road ; they are the lords of the highway, being the channels 
of commerce in a land where mules and asses represent luggage 
rail trains. They know and feel their importance, and that they 
are the rule, and the traveller for mere pleasure is the exception. 
Few Spanish muleteers are much more polished than their beasts, 
and however picturesque the scene, it is no joke meeting a string 
of laden beasts in a narrow road, especially with a precipice on 
one side, cosa de Espana. The Maragatos seldom give way, and 
their mules keep doggedly on; as the baggage projects on each 



TRAVELLING IN THE INTERIOR. 79 

side, like the paddles of a steamer, they sweep the whole path. 
But all wayfaring details in the genuine Spanish interior are cal- 
culated for the pack, as iu England a century back ; and there is 
no thought bestowed on the foreigner, who is not wanted, nay is 
disliked. The inns, roads, and right sides, suit the natives and 
their brutes ; nor will either put themselves out of their way to 
please the fancies of a stranger. The racy Peninsula is too little 
travelled over for its natives to adopt the mercenary conveniences 
of the Swiss, that nation of innkeepers and coach-jobbers. 



THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 



CHAPTER VIII 



Riding Tour in Spain — Pleasures of it — Pedestrian Tour — Choice of Com- 
panions — Rules for a Riding Tour — Season of year — Day's journey — 
Management of Horse ; his Feet ; Shoes ; General Hints. 

A MAN in a public carriage ceases to be a private individual : 
he is merged into the fare, and becomes a number according to 
his place ; he is booked like a parcel, and is delivered by the 
guard. How free, how loi'd and master of himself, does the 
same dependent gentleman mount his eager barb, who by his 
neighing and pawing exhibits his joyful impatience to be off too ! 
How fresh and sweet the free breath of heaven, after the frousty 
atmosphere of a full inside of foreigners, who, from the narcotic 
effects of tobacco, forget the existence of soap, water, and clean 
linen ! Travelling on horseback, so unusual a gratification to 
Englishmen, is the ancient, primitive, and once universal mode 
of travelling in Europe, as it still is in the East ; mankind, how- 
ever, soon gets accustomed to a changed state of locomotion, and 
forgets how recent is its introduction. Fynes Moryson gave much 
the same advice two centuries ago to travellers in England, as 
must be now suggested to those who in Spain desert the coach- 
beaten highways for the delightful bye-ways, and thus explore 
the rarely visited, but not the least interesting portions of the Pen- 
insula. It has been our good fortune to perform many of these 
expeditions on horseback, both alone and in company ; and on 
one occasion to have made the pilgrimage from Seville to Santi- 
ago, through Estremadura and Gallicia, returning by the As- 
turias, Biscay, Leon, and the Castiles ; thus riding nearly two 
tliousand miles on the same horse, and only accompanied by one 
Andalucian servant, who had never before gone out of his native 
province. The same tour was afterwards performed by two 
friends with two servants : nor did they or ourselves ever meet 



ROYAL ROADS. 



with any real impediments or difficulties, scarcely indeed suffi- 
cient of either to give the flavor of adventure, or the dignity of 
danger, to the undertaking. It has also been our lot to make an 
extended tour of many months, accompanied by an English lady, 
through Granada, Murcia, Valencia, Catalonia, and Arragon, to 
say nothing of repeated excursions through every nook and corner 
of Andalucia. The result of all this experience, combined with 
that of many friends, who have ridden over the Peninsula, enables 
us to recommend this method to the young, healthy, and adven- 
turous, as by far the most agreeable plan of proceeding ; and, 
indeed, as we have said, as regards two-thirds of the Peninsula, 
the only practicable course. 

The leading royal roads which connect the capital with the 
principal seaports are, indeed, excellent ; but they are generally 
drawn in a straight line, whereby many of the most ancient 
cities are thus left out, and these, together with sites of battles 
and historical incident, ruins and remains of antiquity, and scenes 
of the greatest natural beauty, are accessible with difficulty, and 
in many cases only on horseback. Spain abounds with wide 
tracts which are perfectly unknown to the Geographical Society. 
Here, indeed, is fresh ground open to all who aspire in these 
threadbare days to book something new ; here is scenery enough 
to fill a dozen portfolios, and subject enough for a score of quar- 
tos. How many flowers pine unbotanized, how many rocks 
harden ungeologized ; what views are dying to be sketched ; 
what bears and deer to be stalked ; what trout to be caught and 
eaten; what valleys expand their bosoms, longing to embrace 
their visitor; what virgin beauties hitherto unseen await the 
happy member of the Travellers' Club, who in ten days can ex- 
change the bore of eternal Pall Mall for these untrodden sites ; 
and then what an accession of dignity in thus discovering a terra 
incognita, and rivalling Mr. Mungo Park ! Nor is a guide want- 
ing, since our good friend John Murray, the grand monarque of 
Handbooks, has proclaimed from Albemarle Street, II n'y a plus 
de Pyrenees. 

As the wide extent of country which intervenes between the 
radii of the great roads is most indifferently provided with public- 
means of inter-communication ; as there is little traffic, and no 
5* 



82 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 



demand for modern conveyances — even mules and horses are not 
always to be procured, and we have always found it best to set 
out on these distant excursions with our own beasts : the com- 
fort and certainty of this precaution have been corroborated be- 
yond any doubt by frequent comparisons with the discomforts 
undergone by other persons, who trusted to chance accommoda- 
tions and means of locomotion in ill- provided districts and out- 
of-the-way excursions : indeed, as a general rule, the traveller 
will do well to carry with him everything with which from habit 
he feels that he cannot dispense. The chief object will be to 
combine in as small a space as possible the greatest quantity of 
portable comfort, taking care to select the really essential ; for 
there is no worse mistake than lumbering oneself with things 
that are never wanted. This mode of travelling has not been 
much detailed by the generality of authors, who have rarely gone 
much out of the beaten track, or undertaken a long-continued 
riding tour, and they have been rather inclined to overstate the 
dangers and difficulties of a plan which they have never tried. 
At the same time this plan is not to be recommended to fine ladies 
nor to delicate gentlemen, nor to those who have had a touch of 
rheumatism, or who tremble at the shadows which coming gout 
casts before it. 

Those who have endurance and curiosity enough to face a tour 
in Sicily, may readily set out for Spain ; rails and post-horses 
certainly get quicker over the country ; but the pleasure of the 
remembrance and the benefits derived by travel are commonly in 
an inverse ratio to the ease and rapidity with which the journey 
is performed. In addition to the accurate knowledge which is 
thus acquired of the country (for there is no map like this mode 
of surveying), and an acquaintance with a considerable, and by 
no means the worst portion of its population, a riding expedition 
to a civilian is almost equivalent to serving a campaign. It im- 
parts a new life, which is adopted on the spot, and which soon 
appears quite natural, from being in perfect harmony and fitness 
with everything around, however strange to all previous habits 
and notions ; it takes the conceit out of a man for the rest of his 
life — it makes him bear and forbear. It is a capital practical 
school of moral discipline, just as the hardiest mariners are nur- 



HEALTHFUL EXERCISE. 



tured in the roughest seas. Then and there will be learnt 
golden rules of patience, perseverance, good temper, and good 
fellowship : the individual man must come out, for better or 
worse. On these occasions, where wealth and rank are stripped 
of the aids and appurtenances of conventional superiority, a man 
will draw more on his own resources, moral and physical, than on 
any letter of credit ; his wit will be sharpened by invention-sug- 
gesting necessity. 

Then and there, when up, about, and abroad, will be shaken 
off dull sloth ; action — Demosthenic action — will be the watch- 
word. The traveller will blot out from his dictionary the fatal 
Spanish phrase of procrastination ly-and-hy, a street which leads 
to the house of 7iever, for " j^^^ ^^ '^^^^^ de despues, se va a la casa 
de nunca." Reduced to shift for himself, he will see the evil of 
waste — the folly of improvidence and want of order. He will 
whistle to the winds the paltry excuse of idleness, the Spanish 
" 710 se puede" " it is impossible.''' He will soon learn, by 
grappling with difficulties, how surely they are overcome, — how 
soft as silk becomes the nettle when it is sternly grasped, which 
would sting the tender-handed touch, — how powerful a principle 
of realizing the object proposed, is the moral conviction that we 
can and will accomplish it. He will never be scared by shadows 
thin as air, for when one door shuts another opens, and he who 
pushes on arrives. And after all, a dash of hardship may be en- 
dured by those accustomed to loll in easy britzskas, if only for 
the sake of novelty ; what a new relish is given to the palled ap- 
petite by a little unknown privation ! — hunger being, as Cervan- 
tes says, the. best of sauces, which, as it never is wanting to the 
poor, is the reason why eating is their huge delight. 

Again, these sorts of independent expeditions are equally con- 
ducive to health of body : after the first few days of the new fa- 
tigue are got over, the frame becomes of iron, " Tiecho de bronze" 
and the rider, a centaur not fabulous. T^e living in the pure 
air, the sustaining excitement of novelty ,^xercise, and constant 
occupation, are all sweetened by the willing heart, which renders 
even labor itself a pleasure ; a new and vigorous life is infused 
into every bone and muscle : early to bed and early to rise, if it 
does not make all brains wise, at least invigorates the gastric juices, 



84 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

makes a man forget that he has a liver, that storehouse of mortal 
misery — bile, blue pill, and blue devils. This health is one of 
the secrets of the amazing charm which seems inherent to this 
mode of travelling, in spite of all the apparent hardships with 
which it is surrounded in the abstract. Oh ! the delight of this 
gipsy, Bedouin, nomade life, seasoned with unfettered liberty ! 
We pitch our tent wherever we please, and there we make our 
home — far from letters " requiring an immediate answer," and 
distant dining-outs, visits, ladies' maids, band-boxes, butlers, 
bores, and button-holders.. 

Escaping from the meshes of the west end of London, we are 
transported into a new world ; every day the out-of-door pan- 
orama is varied ; now the heart is cheered and the countenance 
made glad by gazing on plains overflowing with milk and honey, 
or laughing with oil and wine, where the orange and citron bask 
in the glorious sunbeams, the palm without the desert, the sugar- 
cane without the slave. Anon we are lost amid the silence of 
cloud-capped glaciers, where rock and granite are tost about like 
the fragments of a broken world, by the wild magnificence of 
Nature, who, careless of mortal admiration, lavishes with proud 
indifference her fairest Tli arms where most unseen, her grandest 
forms where most inaccessible. Every day and every where we 
are unconsciously founding a stock of treasures and pleasures of 
memory, to be hived in our bosoms like the honey of the bee, to 
cheer and sweeten our after life, when we settle down like wine- 
dregs in our. cask, which, delightful even as in the reality, wax 
stronger as we grow in years, and feel that these feats of our 
youth, like sweet youth itself, can never be our portion again. 
Of one thing the reader may be assured, — that dear will be to 
him, as is now to us, the remembrance of those wild and weary 
rides through tawny Spain, where hardship was forgotten ere 
undergone : those sweet-aired hills-- those rocky crags and tor- 
rents — those fresh vall^s which communicated their own fresh- 
ness to the heart — thm keen relish for hard fare, gained and 
seasoned by hunger sauce, which Ude did not invent — those sound 
slumbers on harder couch, earned by fatigue, the downiest of 
pillows — the braced nerves — the spirits light, elastic, and joyous 
— that freedom from care — that health of body and soul which 



DELIGHTS OF A TOUR. 



ever rewards a close communion with Nature — and the shuffling 
off of the frets and factitious wants of the thick-pent artificial city. 
Whatever be the number of the party, and however they travel, 
whether on wheels or horseback, admitting even that a pleasant 
friend pro vehiculo est, that is, better than a post-chaise, yet no 
one should ever dream of making a pedestrian tour in Spain. It 
seldom answers anywhere, as the walker arrives at the object of 
his promenade tired and hungry , just at the moment when he 
ought to be the freshest and most up to intellectual pleasures. 
The deipnosophist Athenseus long ago discovered that there was 
no love for the sublime and beautiful in an empty stomach, 
aesthetics yield then to gastronomies, and there is no prospect in 
the world so fine as that of a dinner and a nap, or siesta afterwards. 
The pedestrian in Spain, where fleshly comforts are rare, will 
soon understand why, in the real journals of our Peninsular sol- 
diers, so little attention is paid to those objects which most attract 
the well provided traveller. In cases of bodily hardship, the em- 
ployment of the mental faculties is narrowed into the care of sup- 
plying mere physical wants, rather than expanded into searching 
for those of a contemplative or intellectual gratification ; the foot- 
sore and way-worn require, according to 

" The unesempt condition 
By whicli all mortal frailty must subsist, 
Refreshment after toil, ease after pain." 

Walking is the manner by which beasts travel, who have 
therefore four legs ; those bipeds who follow the example of the 
brute animals will soon find that they will be reduced to their 
level in more particulars than they imagined or bargained for. 
Again, as no Spaniard ever walks for pleasure, and none ever 
perform a journey on foot except trampers and beggars, it is 
never supposed possible that any one else should do so except 
from compulsion. Pedestrians therefore are either ill received, 
or become objects of universal suspicion ; for a Spanish authority, 
judging of others by himself, always takes the worst view of the 
stranger, whom he considers as guilty until he proves himself 
innocent. 

Before the pleasures of a riding tour through Spain are men- 



86 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

tioned, a few observations on the choice of companions may be 
made. 

Those who travel in public conveyances or with muleteers are 
seldom likely to be left alone. It is the horseman who strikes 
into out-of-the-way, unfrequented districts, who will feel the want 
of that important item — a travelling companion, on which, as in 
choosing a wife, it is easy enough to give advice. The patient 
must, however, administer to himself, and the selection will 
depend, of course, much on the taste and idiosyncracy of each 
individual ; those unfortunate persons who are accustomed to 
have everything their own way, or those happy ones, who are 
never less alone than when alone, and who possess the alchymy 
of finding resources and amusements in themselves, may perhaps 
find that plan to be the best j at all events, no company is better 
than bad company : " mas vale ir solo, que mal acompanado.'^ 
A solitary wanderer is certainly the most unfettered as regards 
his notions and motions, " no iengo padre ni madre, ni perro que 
tne ladre.'" He who has " neither father, mother, nor dog To bark 
at him," can read the book of Spain, as it were, in his own room, 
dwelling on what he likes, and skipping what he does not, as with 
a red Murray. 

Every coin has, however, its reverse, and every rose its thorn. 
Notwithstanding these and other obvious advantages, and the 
tendency that occupation and even hardships have to drive away 
imaginary evils, this freedom will be purchased by occasional 
moments of depression ; a dreary, forsaken feeling will steal over 
the most cheerful mind. It is not good for man to be alone ; and 
this social necessity never comes home stronger to the warm 
heart than during a long-continued solitary ride through the 
rarely visited districts of the Peninsula. The sentiment is in 
perfect harmony with the abstract feeling which is inspired by 
the present condition of unhappy Spain, fallen from her high 
estate, and blotted almost from the map of Europe. Silent, sad, 
and lonely is her face, on which the stranger will too often gaze ; 
her hedgeless, treeless tracts of corn-field, bounded only by the 
low horizon ; her uninhabited, uncultivated plains, abandoned to 
the wild flower and the bee, and which are rendered still more 
vnelancholy by ruined castle, or village, which stand out bleach- 



SPANISH MANNERS. 87 

ing skeletons of a former vitality. The dreariness of this abomi- 
nation of desolation is increased by the singular absence of sing., 
ing birds, and the presence of the vulture, the eagle, and lonely 
birds of prey. The wanderer, far from home and friends, feels 
doubly a stranger in this strange land, where no smile greets his 
coming, no tear is shed at his going, — where his memory passes 
away, like that of a guest who tarrieth but a day, — where noth- 
ing of human life is seen, where its existence only is inferred by 
the rude wooden cross or stone-piled cairn, which marks the un- 
consecrated grave of some traveller who has been waylaid there 
alone, murdered, and sent to his account with all his imperfections 
on his head. 

However confidently we have relied on past experience that 
such would not be our fate, yet these sorts of Spanish milestones 
marked with memento mori, are awkward evidences that the 
thing is not altogether impossible. It makes a single gentleman, 
whose life is not insured, not only trust to Santiago, but keep 
his powder dry, and look every now and then if his percussion 
cap fits. On these occasions the falling in with any of the no- 
made half-Bedouin natives is a sort of godsend ; their society is 
quite different from that of a regular companion, for better or 
worse until death us do part, as it is casual, and may be taken up 
or dropped at convenience. The habits of all Spaniards when 
on the road are remarkably gregarious • a common fear acts as a 
cement, while the more they are in number the merrier. It is 
hail ! well met, fellow-traveller ! and the being glad to see each 
other is an excellent introduction. The sight of passengers 
bound our way is like speaking a strange sail on the Atlantic, 
Hola Camara f ship a-hoy. This predisposition tends to make 
all travellers write so much and so handsomely of the lower 
classes of Spaniards, not indeed more than they deserve, for they 
are a fine, noble race. Something of this arises, because on 
such occasions all parties meet on an equality ; and this levelling 
effect, perhaps unperceived, induces many a foreigner, however 
proud and reserved at home, to unbend, and that unaffectedly. 
He treats these accidental acquaintances quite differently from 
the manner in which he would venture to treat the lower orders 
of his own country, who, probably, if conciliated by the same 



88 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

condescension of manner, would appear in a more amiable 
light, although they are inferior to the Spaniard in his Oriental 
goodness of manner, his perfect tact, his putting himself and 
others into their proper place, without either self-degradation 
or vulgar assumption of social equality or superior physical 
powers. 

A -long solitary ride is hardly to be recommended ; it is not 
fair to friends who have been left anxious behind, nor is it pru- 
dent to expose oneself, without help, to the common accidents to 
which a horse and his rider are always liable. Those who have 
a friend with whom they feel they can venture to go in double 
harness, had better do so. It is a severe test, and the trial be- 
comes greater in proportion as hardships abound and accommoda- 
tions are scanty — causes which sour the milk of human kind- 
ness, and prove indifferent restorers of stomach or temper. It is 
on these occasions, on a large journey and in a small venta, that 
a man finds out what his friend really is made of. While in the 
more serious necessities of danger, sickness, and need — a friend 
is one indeed, and the one thing wanting, with whom we share 
our last morsel and cup gladly. The salt of good fellowship, if 
it cannot work miracles as to quantity, converts the small loaf into 
a respectable abstract feed, by the zest and satisfaction with 
which it flavors it. 

Nothing, moreover, cements friendships for the future like 
having made one of these conjoint rambles, provided it did not 
end in a quarrel. The mere fact of having travelled at all in 
Spain has a peculiarity which is denied to the more hackneyed 
countries of Europe. When we are introduced to a person who 
has visited these spell-casting sites, we feel as if we knew him 
already. There is a sort of freemasonry in having done some- 
thing in common, which is not in common with the world at large. 
Those who are about to qualify themselves for this exclusive 
quality will do well not to let the party exceed five in number, 
three masters and two servants; two masters with two servants 
are perhaps more likely to be better accommodated ; a third per- 
son, however, is often of use in trying journeys, as an arbiter 
elegantiarum et rixarum, a referee and arbitrator ; for in the best 
regulated teams it must happen that some one will occasionally 



CHOICE OF HORSES. 



start, gib, or bolt, when the majority being against him brings the 
offender to his proper senses. Four eyes, again, see better than 
two, "mas veil cuatro ojos que dos." 

By attending to a few simple rules, a tour of some months' 
duration, and over thousands of miles, may be performed on one 
and the same horse, who with his rider will at the end of the 
journey be neither sick nor sorry, but in such capital condition 
as to be ready to start again. We presume that the time will 
be chosen when the days are long and Nature has thrown aside 
her wintry garb. Fine weather is the joy of the wayfarer's 
soul, and nothing can be more different than the aspect of Span- 
ish villages in good or in bad weather ; as in the East, during 
wintry rains they are the acmes of mud and misery, but let the 
sun shine out, and all is gilded. It is the smile which lights up 
the habitually sad expression of a Spanish woman's face. The 
blessed beam cheers poverty itself, and by its stimulating, exhil- 
arating action on the system of man, enables him to buffet against 
the moral evils to which countries the most favored by climate 
seem, as if it were from compensation, to be more exposed 
than those where the skies are dull, and the winds bleak and 
cold. 

As in our cavalry regiments, where real service is required, a 
perfect animal is preferred, a rider should choose a mare rather 
than a gelding ; the use of entire horses is, however, so general 
in Spain, that one of such had better be selected than a mare. 
The day's journey will vary according to circumstances from 
twenty-five to forty miles. The start should be made before day- 
break, and the horse well fed at least an hour before the journey 
is commenced, during which Spaniards, if they can, go to church, 
for they say that no time is ever lost on a journey by feeding 
horses and men and hearing masses, misa y cehada no estorhan 
Jornada. 

The hours of starting, of course, depend on the distance and 
the district. The sooner the better, as all who wish to cheat the 
devil must get up very early. " Quien al demonio quiere en- 
ganar, muy temprano levantarse ha." It is a great thing for 
the traveller to reach his night quarters as soon as he can, for 
the first comers are the best served : borrow therefore an hour 



90 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

of the morning rather than from the night ; and that hour, if you 
lose it at starting, you will never overtake in the day. Again, in 
the summer it is both agreeable and profitable to be under weigh 
and off at least an hour or two before sunrise, as the heat soon 
gets insupportable, and the stranger is exposed to the iabard'dlo, 
the coup de soleil, which, even in a smaller degree, occasions 
more ill health in Spain than is generally imagined, and espe- 
cially by the English, who brave it either from ignorance or fool- 
hardiness. The head should be well protected with a silk hand- 
kerchief, tied after a turban fashion, which all the natives do ; in 
addition to which we always lined the inside of our hats with 
thickly doubled brown paper. In Andalucia, during summer, the 
muleteers travel by night, and rest during the day-heat, which, 
however, is not a satisfactory method, except for those who wish 
to see nothing. We have never adopted it. The early mornings 
and cool afternoons and evenings are infinitely preferable ; while 
to the artist the glorious sunrises and sunsets, and the marking 
of mountains, and definition of forms from the long shadows, are 
magnificent beyond all conception. In these almost tropical 
countries, when the sun is high, the elFect of shadow is lost, and 
everything looks flat and unpicturesque. 

The journey should be divided into two portions, and the long- 
est should be accomplished the first ; the pace should average about 
five miles an hour, it being an object not to keep the animal unne- 
cessarily on his legs : he may be trotted gently, and even up easy 
hills, but should always be walked down them ; nay, if led, so 
much the better, which benefits both horse and rider. It is sur- 
prising how a steady, continued slow pace gets over the ground : 
Chi va piano, va sano, e lontano, says the Italian ; paso a paso va 
lejos, step by step goes far, responds the Castilian. The end of 
the journey each day is settled before starting, and there the trav- 
eller is sure to arrive with the evening. Spaniards never fidget 
.themselves to get quickly to places where nobody is expecting 
them : nor is there any good to be got in trying to hurry man or 
beast in Spain ; you might as well think of hurrying the Court 
of Chancery. The animals should be rested, if possible, every 
fourth day, and not used during halts in town, unless they exceed 
three days' sojourn. 



FEEDING YOUR HORSE. 91 

On arriving at every halting-place, look first at the feet, and 
pick out any pebbles or dirt, and examine the nails and shoes 
carefully, to see that nothing is loose ; let this inspection become 
a habit ; do not wash the feet too soon, as the sudden chill some- 
times produces fever in them : when they are cool, clean them 
and grease the hoof well ; after that you may wash as much as 
you please. The best thing, however, is to feed your horse at 
once, before thinking of his toilet ; the march will have given an 
appetite, while the fatigue requires immediate restoration. If a 
horse is to be worried with cleaning, &c., he often loses heart and 
gets off his feed : he may be rubbed down when he has done eat- 
ing, and his bed should be made up as for night, the stable dark- 
ened, and the animal left quite quiet, and the longer the better : 
feed him well again an hour before starting for the afternoon 
stage, and treat him on coming in exactly as you did in the 
morning. The food must be regulated by the work : when that 
is severe, give corn with both hands, and stint the hay and other 
lumber : what you want is to concentrate support by quality, not 
quantity. The Spaniard will tell you that one mouthful of beef 
is worth ten of potatoes. If your horse is an English one, it 
must be rememembered that eight pounds' weight of barley is 
equal to ten of oats, as containing less husk and more mucilage 
or starch, which our horse-dealers know when they want to make 
up a horse ; overfeeding a horse in the hot climate of Spain, like 
overfeeding his rider, renders both liable to fevers and sudden 
inflammatory attacks, which are much more prevalent in Gibral- 
tar than elsewhere in Spain, because our countrymen will go on 
exactly as if they were at home. 

At all events, feed your horse well with something or other, or 
your Spanish squire will rain proverbs on you, like Sancho Panza ; 
the belly must be filled with hay or straw, for it in reality cames 
the feet, O paja o heno el vientre lleno — tripas llevan a pies, and so 
forth. The Spaniards when on a joui'ney allow their horses to 
drink copiously at every stream, saying that there is no juice like 
that of flints : and indeed they set the example, for they are all 
down on their bellies at every brook, swilling water, according to 
the proverb, like an ox, and wine, when they can get it, like a 
king. If therefore you are riding a Spanish horse, which has 



92 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

been accustomed to this continual tippling, let him drink, other- 
wise he will be fevered. If the horse has been treated in the 
English fashion, give him his water only after his meals, other. 
wise he will break out into weakening sweats. Should the ani- 
mal ever arrive distressed, a tepid gruel, made with oatmeal or 
even flour, will comfort him much. At nightfall, stop the feet 
with wet tow, or with horse dung, for that of cows will seldom be 
to be had in Spain, where goats furnish milk, and Dutchmen 
butter. 

Let the feet be constantly attended to ; the horse having twice 
as many as his rider, requires double attention, and of what use 
to a traveller is a quadruped that has not a leg to go upon ? This 
is well known to those commercial gentlemen who are the only 
persons now-a-days in England who make riding journeys. It is 
the shoe that makes or mars the horse, and no wise man, in Spain 
or out, who has got a four-footed hobby, or three half-crowns, 
should delay sending to Longman's for that admirable " Miles on 
the Horse's Foot." "Every knight-errant," says Don Quixote, 
"ought to be able to shoe his own Rosinante himself." Rosin is 
pure Arabic for a hackney — at least he should know how this 
calceolation ought to be done. As a general rule, always take 
your quadruped to the forge, where the shoes can be fitted to his 
feet, not the feet to ready-made shoes ; and if you value the com- 
fort, the extension of life, and service of your sieeA— fasten the 
fore shoes with five nails at most in the outside, and with two only 
in the inside, and those near the toe ; do not in mercy fix by nails 
all round an unyielding rim of dead iron to an expanding living 
hoof; remember also always to take with you a spare set of shoes, 
with nails and a hammer — for the want of a nail the shoe was 
lost ; for the want of a shoe the rider was lost. In many parts of 
Spain, where there are no fine modern roads, you might almost 
do without any shoes at all, as the ancients did, and is done in 
parts of Mexico ; but no unprotected hoof can stand the constant 
wear and tear, tlie filing of a macadamized highway. 

The horse will probably be soon in such condition as to want 
no more physic than his rider ; a lump, however, of rock salt, and 
a bit of chalk put at night into his manger, answers the same pur- 
poses as Epsoms and soda do to the master. You should wash 



THE MOSaUERO. 93 



out the long tail and mane, which is the glory of a Spanish horse, 
as fine hair is to a wonian, with soda and water ; the alkali com- 
bining with the animal grease forms a most searching detergent. 
A grand remedy for most of the accidents to which horses are 
liable on a journey, such as kicks, cuts, strains, &c., is a con- 
stant fomentation with hot water, which should be done under the 
immediate superintendence of the master, or it will be either done 
insufficiently, or not done at all ; hot water, according to the groom 
genus, having been created principally as a recipient of some- 
thing stronger. A crupper and breastplate are almost indispen- 
sable, from the steep ascents and descents in the mountains. The 
mosquero, the fly-flapper, is a great comfort to the horse, as, being 
in perpetual motion, and hanging between his eyes, it keeps off 
the flies J the head-stall, or night halter, never should be removed 
from the bridle, but be rolled up during the day, and fastened 
along the side of the cheek. The long tail is also rolled up when 
the ways are miry, just as those of our blue jackets and horse- 
guards used to be. 



94 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 



CHAPTER IX. 



The Rider's costume — Alforjas: their contents — The Bota, and How to 
use it — Pig Skins and Borracha — Spanish Money — Onzas and smaller 



The rider's costume and accoutrements require consideration ; 
his great object should be to pass in a crowd, either unnoticed, or 
to be taken for " one of us," Uno de Nosotros, and a member of 
the Iberian family — de la Familia : this is best effected by adopt- 
ing the dress that is usually worn by the natives when they travel 
on horseback, or journey by any of their national conveyances, 
among which Anglo-Franco mails and diligences are not yet to be 
reckoned ; all classes of Spaniards, on getting outside the town- 
gate, assume country habits, and eschew the long-tailed coats and 
civilization of the city ; they drop pea-jackets and foreign fashions, 
which would only attract attention, and expose the wearers to 
the ridicule or coai'ser marks of consideration from the peasantry, 
muleteers, and other gentry, who rule on the road, hate novelties, 
and hold fast to the ways and jackets of their forefathers ; the 
best hat, therefore, is the common sombrero calanes, which re- 
semble those worn at Astley's by banditti, being of a conical 
shape, is edged with black velvet, ornamented with silken tufts, 
and looks equally well on a cockney from London, or on a squire 
from Devonshire. The jacket should be the universal fur 
Zamarra, which is made of black sheepskin, in" its ordinary form, 
and of lambskin for those who can pay ; a sash round the waist 
should never be forgotten, being most useful both in reality and 
metaphor: it sustains the loins, and keeps off the dangerous colics 
of Spain, by maintaining an equable heat over the abdomen : 
hence, to be Homerically well girt is half the battle for the Penin- 
sular traveller. 

The capa the cloak, or the manta a striped plaid, and saddle- 



THE ALFORJAS. 



bags, the Alforjas, are absolute essentials, and should be strapped 
on the pommel of the saddle, as being there less heating to the 
horse than when placed on his flanks, and being in front, they 
are more handy for sudden use, since in the mountains and val- 
leys, the rider is constantly exposed to sudden variations of wind 
and weather ; when iEolus and Sol contend for his cloak, as in 
iEsop's Fables, and the buckets of heaven are emptied on him as 
soon as the god of fire thinks him sufficiently baked. 

These saddle-bags are most classical. Oriental, and convenient ; 
they indeed constitute the genus hagsman, and have given their 
name to our riding travellers ; they are the Sardnce of Cato the 
Censor, the Bulges of Lucilius, who made an epigram thereon : — 

" Cum bulga coenat, dormit, lavat, omnis in una.. 
Spes hominis bulga ha,c devincta est csetera vita :" 

which, as these indispensables are quite as necessary to the modern 
Spaniard, may be thus translated : — • 

" A good roomy bag delightetli a Roman, 

He is never without this appendage a minute ; 
In bed, at the bath, at his meals, — in short no man 
Should fail to stow life, hope, and self away in it." 

The countrymen of Sancho Panza, when on the road, make 
the same use of their wallets as the Romans did ; they still (the 
washing excepted) live and die with these bags, in which their 
hearts are deposited with their bread and cheese. 

These Spanish alforjas, in name and appearance, are the Moor- 
ish al horeh. (The F and H, like the B and V, X and J, are al- 
most equivalent, and are used indiscriminately in Spanish caco- 
graphy.) They are generally composed of cotton and worsted, 
and are embroidered in gaudy colors and patterns ; the correct 
thing is to have the owner's name worked in on the edge, which 
ought to be done by the delicate hand of his beloved mistress. 
Those made at Granada are very excellent ; the Moorish, espe- 
cially those from Morocco, are ornamented with an infinity of 
small tassels. Peasants, when dismounted, mendicant monks, 
when foraging for their convents, sling their alforjas over their 
shoulders when they come into villages. 



96 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

Among the contents which most people will find it convenient 
to carry in the right-hand hag, as the easiest to be got at, a pair 
of blue gauze wire spectacles or goggles will be found useful, as 
ophthalmia is very common in Spain, and particularly in the cal- 
cined central plains. The constant glare is unrelieved by any 
verdure, the air is dry, and the clouds of dust highly irritating 
from being impregnated with nitre. The best remedy is to bathe 
the eyes frequently with hot water, and never to rub them when 
injlamed, except with the elbows, los ojos con los codas. Span- 
iards never jest with their eyes or faith ; of the two perhaps they 
are seriously fondest of tlie former, not merely when sparkling 
beneath the arched eyebrows of the dark sex, but when set in 
their own heads. " I love thee like my eyes," is quite a hack- 
neyed form of affection ; nor, however wrathful and imprecatory, 
do they under any circumstances express the slightest unchari- 
table wishes in regard to the visual organs of their bitterest foe. 

The whole art of the alforjas is the putting into them what you 
want the most often, and in the most handy and accessible place. 
Keep here, therefore, a supply of small money for the halt and 
the blind, for the piteous cases of human suffering and poverty 
by which the traveller's eye will be pained in a land where soup- 
dispensing monks are done away with, and assistant new poor 
law commissioners not yet appointed ; such chanty from God's 
purse, holsa de Bios, never impoverishes that of man, and a cheer- 
ful giver, however opposed to modern political economists, is com 
mended in that old-fashioned book called the Bible. The left 
half of the alforjas may be apportioned to the writing and dress- 
ing cases, and the smaller each are the better. 

Food for the mind must not be neglected. The travelling 
library, like companions, should be select and good ; libros y 
amigos pocos y buenos. The duodecimo editions are the best, as 
a large heavy book kills horse, rider, and reader. Books are a 
matter of taste ; some men like Bacon, others prefer Pickwick ; 
stow away at all events a pocket edition of the Bible, Shakspere, 
and Don Quixote : and if the advice of dear Dr. Johnson be worth 
following, one of those books that can be taken in the hand, and 
to the fire-side. Martial, a grand authority on Spanish hand- 
books, recommended " such sized companions on a long journey." 



THE BOTA. 



Quartos and folios, said he, may be left at home in the book- 
case — 

" Scrinia da magnis^ me manus una capit." 

Here also keep the passport, that indescribable nuisance and curse 
of continental travel, to which a free-born Briton never can get 
i-econciled, and is apt to neglect, whereby he puts himself in the 
power of the worst and most troublesome people on earth. Pass- 
ports in Spain now in some degree supply the Inquisition, and 
have been embittered by vexatious forms borrowed from bureau- 
cratic France. 

Having thus disposed of these matters on the front bow of his 
saddle, to which we always added a iota — the pocket-pistol of 
Hudibras — one word on this Bota, which is as necessary to the 
rider as a saddle to his horse. This article, so Asiatic and 
Spanish, is at once the bottle and the glass of the people of the 
Peninsula when on the road, and is perfectly unlike the vitreous 
crockery and pewter utensils of Great Britain. A Spanish wo- 
man would as soon think of going to church without her fan, 
or a Spanish man to a fair without his knife, as a traveller with- 
out his bota. Ours, the faithful, long-tried comforter of many a 
dry road, and honored now like a relic, is hung up a votive of- 
fering to the Iberian Bacchus, as the mariners in Horace sus- 
pended their damp garments to the deity who had delivered them 
from the dangers of water. Its skin, now shrivelled with age 
and with fruitless longings for wine, is still redolent of the ruby 
fluid, whether the generous Valdepenas or the rich vino de Tore : 
and refreshing to our nostrils is even an occasional smell at its 
red-stained orifice. There the racy wine-perfume lingers, and 
brings water into the mouth, it may be into the eyelid. What a 
dream of Spanish odors, good, bad, and indifferent, is awakened 
by its well-known lorracha ! — what recollections, breathing the 
aroma of the balmy south, crowd in ; of aromatic wastes, of 
leagues of thyme, whence Flora sends forth advertisements to her 
tiny bee-customer ; of churches, all incense ; of the goats and 
monks, long-bearded and odoriferous ; of cities whose steam of 
garlic, ollas, oil, and tobacco I'ises up to the heavens, mingled 
with the thousand and one other continental sweets which assail 

PART I. 6 



98 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

a man's nose, whether he lands at Calais or Cadiz ! There hangs 
our smelling-bottle, Jote, now a pleasure of memory ; it has had 
its day, and is never again to be filled in torrid, thirsty Spain, nor 
emptied, which is better. 

This Bota, from whence the terms Bull of sherry, bouteille, 
and bottle are derived, is the most ancient Oriental leathern bottle 
alluded to in Job xxxii. 19, " My belly ready to burst like new 
bottles ;" and in the parable. Matt. ix. 17, about the old ones, 
the force and point of which is entirely lost by our word iottle, 
which being made of glass, is not liable to become useless by age 
like one made of leather. Such a " bottle of water" was the last 
among the few things which Abraham gave to Hagar, when he 
turned out the mother of the Arabians, whose descendants brought 
its usage into Spain. The shape is like that of a large pear or 
shot-pouch, and it contains from two to five quarts. The narrow 
neck is mounted with a turned wooden cup, from which the 
contents are drunk. The way to use it is thus — grasp the neck 
with the left hand and bring the rim of the cup to the mouth, 
then gradually raise the bag with the other hand till the wine, in 
obedience to hydrostatic laws, rises to its level, and keeps always 
full in the cup without trouble to the mouth. The gravity with 
which this is done, the long, slow, sustained, Sancho-like devo- 
tion of the thirsty Spaniards when offered a drink out of another 
man's hota, is very edifying, and is as deep as the sigh of delight 
and gratitude with which, when unable to imbibe more, the pre- 
cious skin is returned. No drop of the divine contents is wasted, 
except by some newly-arrived bungler, who, by lifting up the 
bottom first, inundates his chin. The hole in the cup is made 
tight by a wooden spigot, which again is perforated and stopped 
with a small peg. Those who do not want to take a copious 
draught do not pull out the spigot, but merely the little peg of it ; 
tlie wine then flows out in a thin thread. The Catalonians and 
Aragonese generally drink in this way; they never touch the 
vessel with their lips, but hold it up at a distance above, and 
pilot the stream into their mouths, or rather under-jaws. It is 
much easier for those who have had no practice to pour the wine 
into their necks than into their mouths, but their drinking-bottles 
are made with a long narrow spout, and are called " Porrones." 



THE BOTA— WINE. 



The Bota must not be confounded with the Borracha or Cuero, 
the wine-skin of Spain, which is the entire, and answers the pur- 
pose of the barrel elsewhere. The hola is the retail receptacle, 
the cuero is the wholesale one. It is the genuine pig's skin, the 
adoration of which disputes in the Peninsula with the cigar, the 
dollar, and even the worship of the Virgin. The shops of the 
makers are to be seen in most Spanish towns ; in them long 
lines of the unclean animal's blown out hides are strung up like 
sheep carcases in our butchers' shambles. The tanned and man- 
ufactured article preserves the form of the pig, feet and all, with 
the exception of one : the skin is turned inside out, so that the 
hairy coat lines the interior, which, moreover, is carefully pitched 
like a ship's bottom, to prevent leaking ; hence the peculiar fla- 
vor, which partakes of resin and the hide, which is called the 
borracha, and is peculiar to most Spanish wines, sherry excepted, 
which being made by foreigners, is kept in foreign casks, as we 
shall presently show when we touch on "good sherris sack." A 
drunken man, who is rarer in Spain than in England, is called a 
borracho ; the term is not complimentary. The cueros, when 
filled, are suspended in ventas and elsewhere, and thus economise 
cellarage, cooperage, and bottling ; and such were the bigbellied 
monsters which Don Quixote attacked. 

As the bota is always near every Spaniard's mouth who can 
get at one, all classes being ever ready, like Sancho, to give " a 
thousand kisses," not only to his own legitimate bota, but to that 
of his neighbor, which is coveted more than wife : therefore no 
prudent traveller will ever journey an inch in Spain without 
getting one, and when he has, will never keep it empty, especial- 
ly when he falls in with good wine. Every man's Spanish 
attendant will always find out, by instinct, where the best wine 
is to be had ; good wine neither needs bush, herald, nor crier ; 
in these matters, our experience of them tallies with their pro- 
verb, " mas vale vino maldito, que no agua bendita," " cursed 
bad wine is better than holy water ;" at the same time, in their 
various scale of comparisons, there is good wine, better wine, and 
best wine, but no such thing as bad wine ; of good wine, the 
Spaniards are almost as good judges as of good water; they 
rarely mix them, because they say that it is spoiling two good 



100 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

things. Vino Moro, or Moorish wine, is by no means indicative 
of uncleanness, or other heretical imperfections implied generally 
by that epithet ; it simply means, that it is pure from never 
having been baptized with water, for which the Astm-ians, who 
keep small chandlers' shops, are so infamous, that they are said, 
from inveterate habit, to adulterate even water ; aguan el agua. 

It is a great mistake to suppose, because Spaniards are seldom 
seen drunk, and because when on a journey they drink as much 
water as tlieir beasts, that they have any Oriental dislike to wine ; 
the rule is " Agua como buey, y vino como Rey" " to drink water 
like an ox, and wine like a king." The extent of the given 
quantity of wine which they will always swallow, rather suggests 
that their habitual temperance may in some degree be connected 
more with their poverty than with their will. The way to many 
an honest breast lies through the belly in this classical land, 
where the tutelar of butlers still keeps the key of their cellars 
and hearts — aperit prsecordia Bacchus : nor is their Oriental 
blessing unconnected with some " savory food" previously ad- 
ministered. And independently of the very obvious reasons 
which good wine does and ought to afford for its own consump- 
tion, the irritating nature of Spanish cookery provides a never- 
failing inducement. The constant use of the savory class of con- 
diments and of pepper is very heating, " la pimienta escalienfa." 
A salt-fish, ham and sausage diet creates thirst ; a good rasher 
of bacon calls loudly for a corresponding long and strong pull at 
the " bota,'' " a torresno de tocino, biien goipe de vino." 

This digression on boias will be pardoned by all who, having 
ridden in Spain, know the absolute necessity of them. The 
traveller will of course remember the advice given by the rogue 
of Ventero to Don Quixote to take shirts and money with him. 
" Put money in thy purse" said also honest lago, for an empty 
one is a beggarly companion in the Peninsula as elsewhere. 
There is no getting to Rome or to Santiago if the pilgrim's scrip 
be scanty, or his mule lame : Camino de Roma, ni mula coja ni 
Bolsafioja. 

Practically it may be said, that there is no paper money in 
Spain. Notes may be taken in some of the larger cities, but in 
the provinces, the value of a man jn office's promise to pay on 



MONEY. 101 



paper, is not considered by the shrewd natives to be actually 
equal to cash ; while they will readily give these notes to for- 
eigners, they prefer for their own use the old-fashioned represen- 
tatives of wealth, gold and silver, towards the smallest fraction 
of which they have the largest possible veneration. Accounts 
are usually kept in reales de vellon of royal bullion ; and these 
are subdivided into maravedis, the ancient coin of the Peninsula : 
there are minor fractions even of farthings, consisting in material 
of infinitesimal bits of any metals, melted church bells, old can- 
non, &c., with names and values unknown in our happy land, 
where not much is to be got for a mite 5 in Spain, where cheap- 
ness of earth-produce is commensurate with poverty, anything, 
even to an old button, goes for a maravedi, and we have found 
that in changing a dollar by way of experiment into small cop- 
pers in the market at Seville, among the multitudinous specimens 
of Spanish mints of all periods, Moorish and even Roman coins 
were to be met with, and still current. 

The dollar, or Buro, of Spain is well known all over the 
world, being the form under which silver has been generally 
exported from the Spanish colonies of South America. It is the 
Italian " Colonato," so called because the arms of Spain are 
supported between the two pillars of Hercules. The coinage is 
slovenly : it is the weight of the metal, not the form which is 
looked to by the Spaniard, who, like the Turk, is not so clever 
a workman or mechanist as devout worshipper of bullion. Fer- 
dinand VII. continued for a long while to strike money with 
his father's head, having only had the lettering altered : thus 
early Trajans exhibit the head of Nero. When the Cortes en- 
tered Madrid after the Duke's victory at Salamanca, they 
patriotically prohibited the currency of all coins bearing the 
head of the intrusive Joseph ; yet his dollars being chiefly made 
out of stolen church plate, gilt and ungilt, were, although those 
of an usurper, intrinsically worth more than the legitimate duro : 
this was a too severe test for the loyalty of those whose real king 
and god is cash. Such a decree was worthy of senators who were 
busier employed in expelling French tropes from their dictionary 
than French troops from their country. The wiser Chinese 
take Ferdinand's and Joseph's dollars alike, calling them both 



102 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

" devil's head" money. These bad prejudices against good coin 
have now given way to the march of intellect ; nay, the five- 
franc piece with Louis-Phillippe's clever head on it bids fair to 
oust the pillared Buro. The silver of the mines of Murcia is 
exported to France, where it is coined, and sent back in the 
manufactured shape. France thus gains a handsome per centage, 
and habituates the people to her image of power, which comes 
recommended to them in the most acceptable likeness of current 
coin. 

In Spain cash, ambrosial cash, rules the court, the camp, the 
grove ; hence the extraordinary credit of three millions recently 
required for the secret service expenses of the Tuileries, and 
official enthusiasm and unanimity secured thereby in the Mont- 
pensier purchase. The whole decalogue is condensed at Madrid 
into one commandment, Love God as represented on earth not by 
his vicar the Pope, but by his lord-lieutenant, Don Ducat. 

El primer es amar Don Diner o^ 

Dios es omnipotente, Don Dinero es su liigartenieiUeP 

Thus grandees and men in Spanish offices, both govermental and 
printing ones, have preferred the other day five-franc pieces to 
the ribbons of the legion of honor ; nor considering the swindlers 
on whom this badge of Austerlitz has been prostituted, were 
these worthy Castilians much out in their calculations, if there 
be any truth in the catechism of Falstaffi 

The gold coinage is magnificent, and worthy of the country 
and period from which Europe was supplied with the precious 
metals. The largest piece, the ounce, " onza" is worth sixteen 
dollars, or about 3Z. 6*. ; and while it puts to shame the dimi- 
nutive Napoleons of France and sovereigns of England, tells the 
tale of Spain's former wealth, and contrasts strangely with her 
present poverty and scarcity of specie ; these large coins have 
however been so sweated, not by the sun but by Jews, foreign 
and domestic, so clipped worse than Spanish mules or French 
poodles, that they seldom retain their proper weight and value. 
They are accordingly looked upon every where with suspicion ; 
a shopkeeper in a big town, brings out his scales like Shylock, 
while in a village, shrugs, ajos^ and negative expressions are your 



AVARICE OF SPANIARDS. lOS 

change ; nor, even if the natives are satisfied that they are not 
light, can sixteen dollars be often met with, nor do those who 
have so much ready money by them ever wish that the fact 
should be generally known. Spaniards, like the Orientals, have 
a dread of being supposed to have money in their possession ; it 
exposes them to be plundered by robbers of all kinds, professional 
or legal ; by the " alcalde,'" or village authority, and the " escri- 
bano," the attorney, to say nothing of Senor Mon's tax- 
gatherer ; for the quota of contributions, many of which are 
apportioned among the inhabitants themselves of each district, 
falls heaviest on those who have, or are supposed to have, the 
most ready money. 

The lower classes of Spaniards, like the Orientals, are gene- 
rally avaricious. They see that wealth is safety and power, 
where everything is venal ; the feeling of insecurity makes them 
eager to invest what they have in a small and easily concealed 
bulk, " en lo que no JiaMa," "in that which does not tell tales." 
Consequently, and in self-defence, they are much addicted to 
hoarding. The idea of finding hidden treasures, which prevails 
in Spain as in the East, is based on some grounds ; for in every 
country which has been much exposed to foreign invasions, civil 
wars, and domestic misrule, where there were no safe modes of 
investment, in moments of danger property was converted into 
gold or jewels and concealed with singular ingenuity. The mis- 
trust which Spaniards entertain of each other often extends, when 
cash is in the case, even to the nearest relations, to wife and 
children. Many a treasure is thus lost from the accidental death 
of the hider, who, dying without a sign, carries his secret to the 
grave, adding thereby to the sincere grief of his widow and heir. 
One of the old vulgar superstitions in Spain is an idea that those 
who were born on a Good Friday, the day of mourning, were 
gifted with a power of seeing into the earth and of discovering 
hidden treasures. One place of concealment has always been 
under the bodies in graves ; the hiders have trusted to the dead 
to defend what the quick could not : this accounts for the uni- 
versal desecration of tombs and churchyards during Buonaparte's 
invasion. The Gauls growled like gowls amid the churchyards ; 
they despoiled the mouldering corpses of the last pledge left by 



104 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

weeping affection ; or, as Burke observed of their domestic 
doings, they unplumbed the dead to make missiles of destruction 
against the living. These hordes, in their horrid flight before the 
advancing Duke, also hid much of their ill-gotten gains, which 
to this day are hunted after. Who has forgotten Borrow's gra- 
phic picture of the treasure-seeking Mol ? At this very moment 
the authoritias of San Sebastian are narrowly superintending the 
diggings of an old Frenchwoman, to whom some dying thief at 
home has revealed the secret of a buried kettle full of gold 
ounces. 

Having provided the " Spanish,^'' those metallic sinews of war, 
w^^ich also make the mare go in peace, a prudent master, if he 
intends to be really the master, will hold the purse himself, and 
moreover, will keep a sharp eye on it, for the jingle of coin dis- 
pels even a Spanish siesta, and causes many a sleepless day to 
every listener, from the beggar to the queen mother. 



SPANISH SERVANTS. 105 



CHAPTER X. 

Spanish Servants : their Character — Travelling Groom, Cook, and Valet. 

Don Quixote's first thought, after having determined to ride 
forth into Spain, was to get a horse ; his second was to secure a 
squire ; and as the narrative of his journey is still an excellent 
guide-book for modern travellers, his example is not to be slighted. 
A good Sancho Panza will on the whole be found to be a more 
constant comfort to a knight-errant than even a Dulcinea. To 
secure a really good servant is of the utmost consequence to all 
who make out-of-the-way excursions in the Peninsula ; for, as in 
the East, he becomes often not only cook, but interpreter and 
companion to his master. It is therefore of great importance to 
get a person with whom a man can ramble over these wild scenes. 
The so doing ends, on the part of the attendant, in an almost 
canine friendship ; and the Spaniard, when the tour is done, is 
broken-hearted, and ready to leave his home, horse, ass, and wife, 
to follow his master, like a dog, to the world's end. Nine times 
out of ten it is the master's fault if he has bad servants : tel 
maitre tel valet. Al amo imprudente, el mozo negligente. He must 
begin at once, and exact the performance of their duty ; the only 
way to get them to do anything is, as the Duke said, to " frighten 
them," to "take a decided line." It is very difficult to make 
them see the importance of detail and of doing exactly what they 
are told, which they will always endeavor to shirk when they 
can ; their task must be clearly pointed out to them at starting, 
and the earliest and smallest infractions, either in commission or 
omission, at once and seriously noticed, the moral victory is soon 
gained. The example of the masters, if they be active and or- 
derly, is the best lesson to servants j mucho sahe el rato, pero mas 
el gato; the rats are well enough, but the cats are better. Achil- 
les, Patroclus, and the Homeric heroes, were their own cooks ; 
6* 



106 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

and many a man who, like Lord Blayney, may not be a hero, 
will be none the worse for following the epical example, in a 
Spanish venta : at all events a good servant, who is up to his 
work, and will work, is indeed a jewel ; and on these, as on other 
occasions, he deserves to be well treated. Those who make 
themselves honey are eaten by flies — quien se hac miel, le comen 
las moscas ; while no rat ever ventures to jest with the cat's son ; 
con liijo de gato, no se hurlan los ratones. The great thing is to 
make them get up early, and learn the value of time, which the 
groom cannot tie with his halter, tiempo y liora, no se ata con soga ; 
while a cook who oversleeps himself not only misses his mass, 
but his meat, quien se levanta tarde, ni oye misa, ni compra came. 
If (which is soon found out) the servants seem not likely to answer, 
the sooner they are changed the better ; it is loss of time and soap, 
and he who is good for nothing in his own village will not be 
worth more either in Seville or elsewhere, so says the proverb. 

The principal defects of Spanish servants and of the lower 
classes of Spaniards are much the same, and faults of race. As 
a mass, they are apt to indulge in habits of procrastination, waste, 
improvidence, and untidiness. They are unmechanical and ob- 
stinate, easily beaten by difficulties, which their first feeling is to 
raise, and their next to succumb to ; they give the thing up at 
once. They have no idea indeed of grappling with anything 
that requires much trouble, or of doing anything as it ought to be 
done, or even of doing the same thing in the same way — accident 
and the impulse of the moment set them going. They are very 
unmechanical, obstinate, and prejudiced ; ignorant of their own 
ignorance and incurious as Orientals ; partly from pride, self- 
opinion, and idleness, they seldom will ask questions for infor- 
mation from others, which implies an inferiority of knowledge, 
and still more seldom will take an answer, unless it be such a 
one as they desire ; their own wishes, opinions, and wants are 
their guides, and self the centre of their gravity, not those of 
their employers. As a Spaniard's yes, when you beg a favor, 
generally means no, so they cannot or will not understand that 
your no is really a negative when they come petitioning to be 
idle J at the same time a great change for the better comes over 
them when they are taken out of the city on a rambling tour. 



CHARACTER OF SPANISH SERVANTS. 107 

The nomad life excites them into active serviceable fellows ; in fact 
the uncertain harum-scarum nomad existence is exactly what suits 
these descendants of the Arab ; they cannot bear the steady sus- 
tained routine of a well-managed household ; they abhor confine- 
ment ; hence the difficulty of getting Spaniards to garrison for- 
tresses or to man ships of war, from whence there is no escape. 

iVs for what we call a well-appointed servants' hall, the case is 
hopeless in Spanish field or city, and is equally so whether the 
life be above or below stairs. In the house of the middle or high- 
est classes this is particularly shown in every thing that regards 
gastronomies, which are the tests and touchstones of good service. 
In truth, the Spaniard, accustomed to his own desultory, free and 
eas}'-, impromptu, scrambling style of dining, is constrained by the 
order and discipline, the pomp and ceremony, and serious import- 
ance of a well-r€gulated dinner, and their observance of forms 
extends only to persons, not to things : even the grandee has only 
a thin European polish spread over his Gotho-Bedouin dining- 
table ; he lives and eats surrounded by an humble clique, in his 
huge, ill-furnished barrack-house, without any elegance, luxury, 
or even comfort, according to sound trans-pyrenean notions : few 
indeed are the kitchens which possess a cordon bleu, and fewer 
are the masters who really like an orthodox entree, one unpolluted 
with the heresies of garlic and red pepper : again, whenever their 
cookery attempts to be foreign, as in their other imitations, it ends 
in being a flavorless copy ; but few things are ever done in Spain 
in real style, which implies forethought and expense ; everything 
is a make-shift; the noble master reposes his affairs on an unjust 
steward, and dozes away life on this bed of roses, somnolescent 
over business and awake only to intrigue ; his numerous ill-con- 
ditioned, ill-appointed servants have no idea of discipline or sub- 
ordination ; you never can calculate on their laying even the 
table-cloth, as they prefer idling in the church or market to doing 
their duty, and would rather starve, dance, and sleep out of place 
and independently, than feast and earn their wages by fair work ; 
nor has the employer any redress, for if he dismisses them he will 
only get just such another set, or even worse. 

In our own Spanish household, the instant dinner and siesta 
were over, the cook with his kitchen-man, the valet with the foot- 



108 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

man invariably stripped off their working-apparel — liveries are 
almost unheard of — donned their conical velvet embroidered hats, 
their sky-blue waistcoats, and scarlet sashes, and were off with a 
guitar to some scene of song and love-making, leaving their mas- 
ter alone in his glory to moralize on the uncertainty of human 
concerns and the faithlessness of mankind. 

What can't be cured must be endured. To resume, therefore, 
the character of these Spanish servants ; they are very loquacious, 
and highly* credulous, as often is the case with those given to ro- 
mancing, which they, and especially the Andalucians, are to a 
large degree ; and, in fact, it is the only remaining romance in 
Spain, as far as the natives are concerned. As they have an es- 
pecial good opinion of themselves, they are touchy, sensitive, 
jealous, and thin-skinned, and easily affronted whenever their im- 
perfections are pointed out ; their disposition is very sanguine and 
inflammable ; they are always hoping that what they eagerly de- 
sire will come to pass without any great exertion on their parts ; 
they love to stand still with their arms folded, while other men put 
their shoulders to the wheel. Their lively imagination is very 
apt to carry them away into extremes for good or evil, when they 
act on the moment like children, and having gratified the humor 
of the impulse relapse into their ordinary tranquillity, which is 
that of a slumbering volcano. On the other hand, they are full 
of excellent and redeeming good qualities ; they are free from 
caprice, are hardy, patient, cheerful, good-humored, sharp-witted, 
and intelligent ; they are honest, faithful, and trustworthy ; sober, 
and unaddicted to mean, vulgar vices ; they have a bold, manly 
bearing, and will follow well wherever they are well led, being 
the raw material of as good soldiers as are in the world ; they are 
loyal and religious at heart, and full of natural tact, mother-wit, 
and innate good manners. In general, a firm, quiet, courteous, 
and somewhat reserved manner is the most effective. Whenever 
duties are to be performed, let them see that you are not to be tri- 
fled with. The coolness of a determined Englishman's manner, 
when in earnest, is what few foreigners can withstand. Grimace 
and gesticulation, sound and fury, bluster, petulance, and imper- 
tinence fume and fret in vain against it, as the sprays and foam of 



SPANISH AND ENGLISH MANNERS. 



the " French lake" do against the unmoved and immovable rock 
of Gibraltar. 

An Englishman, without being over-familiar, may venture on 
a far greater degree of unbending in his intercourse vi^ith his 
Spanish dependants than he can dare to do vi'ith those he has in 
England. It is the custom of the country ; they are used to it, 
and their heads are not turned by it, nor do they ever forget their 
relative positions. The Spaniards treat their servants very much 
like the ancient Romans or the modern Moors ; they are more 
their verncB, their domestic slaves : it is the absolute authority of 
the father combined with the kindness. Servants do not often 
change their masters in Spain : their relation and duties are so 
clearly defined, that the latter runs no risk of compromising him- 
self or his dignity by his familiarity, which can be laid down or 
taken up at his own pleasure ; whereas the scorn, contempt, and 
distance with which the said courteous Don would treat a rotu- 
rierwho presumed to be intimate, baffle description. In England 
no man dares to be intimate with his footman ; for supposing 
even such absurd fancy entered his brain, his footman is his equal 
in the eye of man-made law, God having created them utterly un- 
equal in all his gifts, whether of rank, wealth, form, or intellect. 
Conventional barriers accordingly must be erected in self-defence : 
and social barriers are more difficult to be passed than walls of 
brass, more impossible to be repealed than the whole statutes at 
large. No master in Spain, and still less a foreigner, should ever 
descend to personal abuse, sneers, or violence. A blow is never to 
be washed out except in blood, and Spanish revenge descends to the 
third and fourth generation ; and whatever these backward Span- 
iards have to learn from foreigners, it is not the duty of revenge, 
nor how to perform it. There should be no threatenings in vain, 
but whenever the opportunity occurs for punishment, let it be done 
quietly and effectively, and the fault once punished should not be 
needlessly ripped up again ; Spaniards are sufficiently unforgiv- 
ing, and hoarders-up of unrevenged grievances require to be re- 
minded. A kind and uniform behavior, a showing consideration to 
them, in a manner which implies that you are acccustomed to it, 
and expect it to be shown to you, keeps n>ost things in their right 
places. Temper and patience are the great requisites in the mas- 



no THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

ler, especially when he speaks the language imperfectly. He must 
not think Spaniards stupid because they cannot guess the meaning 
of his unknown tongue. Nothing again is gained by fidgeting and 
overdoing, and however early you may get up, daybreak will not 
take place the sooner : no por mucho madrugar, amanece mas tem- 
prano. Let well alone : be not zealous overmuch : be occasion- 
ally both blind and deaf: shut the door, and the devil passes by : 
keep honey in mouth and an eye to your cash : miel en ioca y 
guarda la holsa. Still how much less expenditure is necessary in 
Spain than in performing the commonest excursion in England ! 
— and yet many who submit to their own countrymen's extor- 
tions are furious at what they imagine is an especial cheating of 
them, quasi Englishmen, abroad : this outrageous economy, with 
which some are afflicted, is penny wise and pound foolish : pay, 
pay therefore with both hands. The traveller must remember 
that he gains caste, gets brevet rank in Spain — that he is taken 
for a grandee incog., and ranks with their nobility ; he must pay 
for these luxuries : how small after all will be the additional per 
centage on his general expenditure, and how well bestowed is 
the excess in keeping the temper good, and the capability of en- 
joying unruffled a tour, which only is performed once in a life ! 
No wise man who goes into Spain for amusement will plunge 
into this guerrilla, this constant petty warfare, about sixpences. 
Let the traveller be true to himself; hold his tongue; avoid bad 
company, quien liace su cama con perros, se levania con jJidgas, 
those who sleep with dogs get up with fleas ; and make room for 
bulls and fools, al loco y toro da le corro, and he may see Spain 
agreeably, and, as Catullus said to Veranius, who made the tour 
many centuries ago, may on his return amuse his friends and 
" old mother :" — 

" Visam te incolumem, audiamque Iberum 
Narrantem Ioca, facta, nationes, 
Sicut tuus est mos." 

which may be thus Englished : — - 

May you come back safe, and tell 

Of Spanish men, their things and places, 

Of Spanish ladies' eyes and faces, 

In your own way, and so well. 



TRAVELLING SERVANTS. Ill 

Two masters should take two servants, and both should be 
Spaniards : all others, unless they speak the language perfectly, 
are nuisances. A Gallegan or Asturian makes the best groom, 
an Andaluz the best cook and personal attendant. Sometimes a 
person may be picked up who has some knowledge of languages, 
and who is accustomed to accompany strangers through Spain a^ 
a sort of courier. These accomplishments are very rare, and the 
moral qualities of the possessor often diminish in proportion as 
his intellect has marched ; he has learnt more foreign tricks than 
words, and sea-port towns are not the best schools for honesty. 
Of these nondescripts the Hispano-Anglo, who generally has de- 
serted from Gibraltar, is the best, because he will work, hold his 
tongue, and fight ; a monkey would be a less inconvenience than 
a chattering Ibero-Gallo ; one who has forgotten his national ac- 
complishments — cooking and hairdressing, and learnt very few 
Spanish things, such as good temper and endurance. Whichever 
of the two is the sharpest should lead the way, and leave the other 
to bring up the rear. They should be mounted on good mules, 
and be provided with large panniers. One should act as the cook 
and valet, the other as the groom of the party ; and the utensils 
peculiar to each department should be carried by each professor. 
Where only one servant is employed, one side of the pannier 
should be dedicated to the commissariat, and the other to the lug- 
gage ; in that case the master should have a flying portmanteau, 
which should be sent by means of cosarios, and precede him 
from great town to great town, as a magazine, wardrobe, or gene- 
ral supply to fall back on. The servants should each have their 
own saddle-bag and leathern bottle, which, since the days of 
Sancho Panza, are part and parcel of a faithful squire, and 
when all are carried on an ass are quite patriarchal. " Iha 
Sancho Panza solre sujumento, como un pairiarca con sus alfor- 
jas y hota." 

The servants will each in their line look after their own affairs ; 
the groom will take with him the things of the stable, and a small 
provision of corn, in order that a feed may never be wanting, on 
an unexpected emergency ; he will always ascertain beforehand 
through what sort of a country each day's journey is to be made, 
and make preparations accordingly. The valet will view his 



112 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

masters in the same light as the groom does his beasts ; and he 
will purvey and keep in readiness all that appertains to their 
comfort, always remembering a moskito net — we shall presently 
say a word on the fly-plague of the Peninsula — with nails to 
knock into the walls to hang it up by, not forgetting a hammer 
and gimlet; common articles enough, but which are never to be 
got at the moment and place where they are the most wanted. 
He will also carry a small canteen, the smaller and more ordi- 
nary the better, as anything out of the common way attracts at- 
tention, and suggests, first, the coveting other men's goods, and so 
on to assaults; batteries, robberies, and other inconveniences, 
which have been exploded on our roads ; although M. Moryson 
took care to caution our ancestors " to be warie on this head, 
since theeves have their spies commonly in all innes, to enquire 
into the condition of travellers." The manufactures of Spain 
are so rude and valueless that what appears to us to be the most 
ordinary appears to them to be the most excellent, as they have 
never seen anything so good. The lower orders, who eat with 
their fingers, think everything is gold which glitters, iodo es oro 
lo que reluce ; as, after all, it is what is on the plate that is the 
rub, let no wise man have such smart forks and knives as to 
tempt cut-throats to turn them to unnatural purposes. However, 
avoid all superfluous luggage, especially prejudices and foregone 
conclusions, for " en largo camino paja pesa," a straw is heavy 
on a long journey, and the last feather breaks the horse's back. 
A store of cigars, however, must always be excepted ; take 
plenty and give them freely ; it always opens a conversation well 
with a Spaniard, to offer him one of these little delicate marks of 
attention. Good snuff is acceptable to the curates and to monks 
(though there are none just now). English needles, thread, and 
pairs of scissors take no room, and are all keys to the good graces 
of the fair sex. There is a charm about a present, hachshish, in 
most European as well as Oriental countries, and still more if it 
is given with tact, and at the proper time ; Spaniards, if unable 
to make any equivalent return, will always try to repay by civili- 
ties and attentions. 

Every one must determine for himself whether he prefers the 
assistance of this servant in the kitchen or at the toilet ; since it 



COOKING UTExNSILS. 113 

is not easy for mortal man to dress a master and a dinner, and 
both well at the same time, let alone two masters. A cook who 
runs after two hares at once catches neither. No prudent trav- 
eller on these, or any occasions, should let another do for him 
what he can do for himself, and a man who waits upon himself 
is sure to be well waited on. If, however, a valet be absolutely 
necessary, the groom clearly is best left in his own chamber, the 
stable ; he will have enough to do to curry and valet his four 
animals, which he knows to be good for their health, though he 
never scrapes off the cutaneous stucco by which his own illote 
carcass is Roman cemented. From long experience we have 
found that if the rider will get into the habit of carrying all the 
things requisite for his own dressing in a small separate bag, and 
employ the hour while the cook is getting the supper under 
weigh, it is wonderful how comfortably he will proceed to his 
puchero. 

The cook should take with him a ste wing-pan, and a pot or 
kettle for boiling water ; he need not lumber himself with much 
batterie de cuisine ; it is not much needed in the imperfect gas- 
tronomy of the Peninsula, where men eat like the beasts which 
perish ; all sort of artillery is rather rare in Spanish kitchen oi 
fortress ; an hidalgo would as soon think of having a voltaic bat- 
tery in his sitting-room as a copper one in his cuisine ; most 
classes are equally satisfied with the Oriental earthenware ollas, 
pucheros, or pipkins, which are everywhere to be found, and 
have some peculiar sympathy with the Spanish cuisine, since a 
stew — be it even of a cat— never eats so well when made in a 
metal vessel ; the great thing is to bring the raw materials, — first 
catch your hare. Those who have meat and money will always 
get a neighbor to lend them a pot. A venta is a place where the 
rich are sent empty away, and where the poor hungry are not 
filled ; the whole duty of the man-cook, therefore, is to be always 
thinking of his commissariat ; he need not trouble himself about 
his master's appetite, that will seldom fail, — nay, often be a mis- 
fortune ; a good appetite is not a good per se,* for it, even when 

* When George IV. once complained that he had lost his royal appetite, 
" What a scrape, sir, a poor man would be in if he foimd it !" said hia 
Rochester companion. 



114 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

the best, becomes a bore when there is nothing to eat ; his capU' 
cho or mule hamper must be his travelling larder, cellar, and 
store-room ; he will victual himself according to the route, and 
the distances from one great town to another, and always take 
care to start with a good provision : indeed to attend to the com- 
missariat is, it cannot be too often repeated, the whole duty of a 
man cook in hungry Spain, where food has ever been the diffi- 
culty ; a little foresight gives small trouble and ensures great 
comfort, while perils by sea and perils by land are doubled when 
the stomach is empty, whereas, as Sancho Panza wisely told his 
ass, all sorrows are alleviated by eating bread : todos los duelos, 
con pan son huenos, and the shrewd squire, who seldom is wrong, 
was right both in the matter of bread and the moral ; the former 
is admirable. The central table-lands of Spain are perhaps the 
finest wheat-growing districts in the world ; however rude and 
imperfect the cultivation — for the peasant does not scratch the 
earth, and seldom manures — the life-conferring sun comes to his 
assistance ; the returns are prodigious, and the quality super- 
excellent ; yet the growers, miserable in the midst of plenty, ve- 
getate in cabins composed of baked mud, or in holes burrowed 
among the friable hillocks, in an utter ignorance of furniture, 
and absolute necessaries. The want of roads, canals, and means 
of transport prevents their exportation of produce, which from its 
bulk is difficult of carriage in a country where grain is removed 
for the most part on four-footed beasts of burden, after the orien- 
tal and patriarchal fashion of Jacob, when he sent to the grana- 
ries of Egypt. Accordingly, although there are neither sliding 
scales nor corn laws, and subsistence is cheap and abundant, the 
population decreases in number and increases in wretchedness ; 
what boots it if corn be low-priced, if wages be still lower, as 
they then everywhere are and must be ? 

The finest bread in Spain is called pan de candeal, which is 
eaten by men in office and others in easy circumstances, as it was 
by the clergy. The worst bread is the pan de municion, and 
forms the fare of the Spanish soldiers, which, being sable as a hat, 
coarse and hard as a brickbat, would just do to sop in the black 
broth of the Spartan military ; indeed, the expression de municion 
is synonymous in the Peninsula with badness of quality, and the 



THRESHING AND WINNOWING. 



secondary meaning is taken from the perfection of badness which 
is perceptible in every thing connected with Spanish ammunition, 
from the knapsack to the citadel. Such- bread and water, and 
both hardly earned, are the rations of the poor patient Spanish 
private ; nor can he when before the enemy reckon always on 
even that, unless it be supplied from an ally's commissariat. 

Perhaps the best bread in Spain is made at Alcala de Guadaira, 
near Seville, of which it is the oven, and hence the town is called 
the Alcala of bakers. There bread may truly be said to be the 
soul of its existence, and samples abound everywhere : roscas, 
or circular-formed rusks, are hung up like garlands, and hogazas, 
loaves, placed on tables outside the houses. It is, indeed, as 
Spaniards say. Pan de Dios — the " angels' bread of Esdras." All 
classes here gain their bread by making it, and the water-mills 
and mule-mills are never still ; women and children are busy 
picking out earthy particles from the grain, which get mixed from 
the common mode of threshing on a floor in the open air, which 
is at once Biblical and Homeric. At the outside of the villages, 
in corn-growing districts, a smooth open " threshing-floor" is pre- 
pared, with a hard surface, like a fives court : it is called the era. 
and is the precise Roman area. The sheaves of corn are spread 
out on it, and four horses yoked most classically to a low crate or 
harrow, composed of planks armed with flints, &c., which is 
called a trillo : on this the driver is seated, who urges the beasts 
round and round over the crushed heap. Thus the grain is 
shaken out of the ears and the straw triturated ; the latter becomes 
food for horses, as the former does for men. When the heap is 
sufficiently bruised, it is removed and winnowed by being thrown 
up into the air ; the light winds carry off" the chaftj while the 
heavy corn f^ls to the ground. The whole operation is truly 
picturesque and singular. The scene is a crowded one, as many 
cultivators contribute to the mass and share in the labor ; their 
wives and children cluster around, clad in strange dresses of varied 
colors. They are sometimes sheltered from the god of fire under 
boughs, reeds and awnings, run up as if for the painter, and fall- 
ing of themselves into pictures, as the lower classes of Spaniards 
and Italians always do. They are either eating and drinking, 
singing or dancing, for a guitar is never wanting. Meanwhile 



116 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

the fierce horses dash over the prostrate sheaves, and realize the 
splendid simile of Homer, who likens to them the fiery steeds of 
Achilles when driven over Trojan bodies. These out-of-door 
threshings take place of course when the weather is dry, and 
generally under a most terrific heat. The work is often con- 
tinued at night-fall by torch-light. During the day the half-clad 
dusky reapers defy the sun and his rage, rejoicing rather in the 
heat like salamanders ; it is true that their devotions to the porous 
water-jar are unremitting, nor is a swill at a good passenger's 
hota ever rejected ; all is life and action ; busy hands and feet, 
flashing eyes, and eager screams ; the light yellow chaff", which 
in the sun's rays glitters like gold dust, envelopes them in a halo, 
which by night, when partially revealed by the fires and mingled 
with the torch glare, is almost supernatural, as the phantom 
figures, now dark in shadows, now crimsoned by the fire flash, 
flit to and fro in the vaporous mist. The scene never fails to 
rivet and enchant the stranger, who, coming from the pale north 
and the commonplace in-door flail, seizes at once all the novelty 
of such doings. Eye and ear, open and awake, become inlets o' 
new sensations of attention and admiration, and convey to hear 
and mind the poetry, local color, movement, grouping, actior 
and attitude. But while the cold-blooded native of leaden skie 
is full of fire and enthusiasm, his Spanish companion, bred ar 
born under unshorn beams, is chilly as an icicle, indiflferent .^ 
an Arab: he passes on the other side, not only not admiring, bu. 
positively ashamed ; he only sees the barbarity, antiquity, anu 
imperfect process ; he is sighing for some patent machine made 
in Birmingham, to be put up in a closed barn after the models 
approved of by the Royal Agricultural Society in Cavendish 
Square ; his bowels yearn for the appliances of civilization by 
which " bread stuffs" are more scientifically manipulated and 
manufactured, minus the poetry. 

To return, however to dry bread, after this new digression, 
and all those who have ever been in Spain, or have ever written 
on Spanish things, must feel how difficult it is to keep regularly 
on the road without turning aside at every moment, now to cull 
a wild flower, now to pick up a sparkling spar. This corn, so 
beaten, is very carefully ground, and in La Mancha in those 



LUNCHEON. 117 



charming windmills, which, perched on eminences to catch the 
air, look to this day, with their outstretched arms, like Quixotic 
giants ; the flour is passed through several hoppers, in order to 
secure its fineness. The dough is most carefully kneaded, 
worked, and re-worked, as is done by our biscuit-makers ; hence 

' the close-grained, caky, somewhat heavy consistency of the 
crumb, whereas, according to Pliny, the Romans esteemed Span- 

i ish bread on account of its lightness. 

' The Spanish loaf has not that mysterious sympathy with butter 
and cheese as it has in our verdurous Old England, probably be- 
cause in these torrid regions pasture is rare, butter bad, and 
cheese worse, albeit they suited the iron digestion of Sancho, who 
knew of nothing better ; none, however, who have ever tasted 
Stilton or Parmesan will join in his eulogies of Castilian queso, 
'he poorness of which will be estimated by the distinguished con- 

I lideration in which a round cannon-ball Dutch cheese is held 

hroughout the Peninsula. The traveller, nevertheless, should 

ike one of them, for bad is here the best, in many other things 

1 ssides these : he will always carry some good loaves with it, for 

1 the damper-mountain districts the daily bread of the natives is 

1 ade of rye, Indian corn, and the inferior cerealia. Bread is 

1 ? staff of the Spanish traveller's life, who, having added raw 

1 rlic, not salt, to it, then journeys on with security, con pan y 

\ crudo se anda seguro. Again, a loaf never weighs one down, 

1 ^ is ever in the way ; as ^sop, the prototype of Sancho, well 

k.iew. La hogaza no emharaza. 

Having secured his bread, the cook in preparing supper should 
make enough for the next day's lunch, las once, the eleven o'clock 
meal, as the Spaniards translate meridie, twelve or mid-day, 
whence the correct word for luncheon is derived, merienda meren- 
dar. Wherever good dishes are cut up there are good leavings, 
" donde buenas alias quehran, huenos cascos quedan y" and nothing 
can be more Cervantic than the occasional al fresco halt, when no 
better place of accommodation is to be met with. As the sun 
gets high, and man and beast hungry and weary, wherever 
a tempting shady spot with running water occurs, the party 
draws aside from the high road, like Don Quixote and Sancho 
Panza : a retired and concealed place is chosen, the luggage is 



118 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

removed from the animals, the hampers which lard the lean soil 
are unpacked, the table-cloth is spread on the grass, the botas are 
laid in the water to cool their contents ; then out with the pro- 
vision, cold partridge or turkey, sliced ham or chorizo — simple 
cates, but which are eaten with an appetite and relish for which 
aldermen would pay hundreds. They are followed, should 
grapes be wanting, with a soothing cigar, and a sweet slumber 
on earth's freshest, softest lap. In such wild banquets, Spain 
surpasses the Boulevards. Alas ! that such hours should be 
bright and winged as sunbeams ! Such is Peninsular country 
fare. The olla, on which the rider may restore exhausted 
nature, is only to be studied in large towns ; and dining, of 
which this is the foundation in Spain, is such a great resource to 
travellers, and Spanish cookery, again, is so Oriental, classical, 
and singular, let alone its vital importance, that the subject will 
properly demand a chapter to itself. 



A SPANISH COOK. 119 



CHAPTER XI. 

A Spanish Cook — Philosophy of Spanish Cuisine — Sauce — Difficulty of 
Commissariat — The Provend — Spanish Hares and Rabbits — The OUa — 
Garbanzo — Spanish Pigs — Bacon and Hams — Omelette — Salad and 
Gazpacho. 

It would exhaust a couple of Colonial numbers at least to dis- 
cuss properly the merits and digest Spanish cookery. All that 
can be now done is to skim the subject, which is indeed fat and 
unctuous. Those meats and drinks will be briefly noticed which 
are of daily occurrence, and those dishes described which we have 
often helped to make, and oftener helped to eat, in the most lar- 
derless ventas and hungriest districts of the Peninsula, and which 
provident wayfarers may make and eat again, and, as we pray, 
with no worse appetite. 

To be a good cook, which few Spaniards are, a man must not 
only understand his master's taste, but be able to make something 
out of nothing ; just as a clever French artiste converts an old 
shoe into an epigramme d'agneau, or a Parisian milliner dresses 
up two deal boards into a fine live Madame, whose only fault is 
the appearance of too much embonpoint. Genuine and legitimate 
Spanish dishes are excellent in their way, for no man nor man- 
cook ever is ridiculous when he does not attempt to be what he is 
not. The au naturel may occasionally be somewhat plain, but 
seldom makes one sick; at all events it would be as hopeless to 
make a Spaniard understand real French cookery as to endeavor 
to explain to a depute the meaning of our constitution or parlia- 
ment. The ruin of Spanish cooks is their futile attempts to imi- 
tate foreign ones : just as their silly grandees murder the glori- 
ous Castilian tongue, by substituting what they fancy is pure 
Parisian, which they speak comme des vaches Espagnoles. Dis 
moi ce que tu manges et je te dirai ce que tu es is " un mot pro- 
fond" of the great equity judge, Brillat Savarin, who also dis- 



120 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

covered that " Les destinies des nations dependent de la maniire 
dont elles se nourrisseni /" since which General Foy has attribu- 
ted all the accidental victories of the British to rum and beef. 
And this great fact much enhances our serious respect for punch, 
and our true love for the ros-Uf of old England, of which, by the 
way, very little will be got in the Peninsular, where bulls are bred 
for baiting, and oxen for the plough, not the spit. 

The national cookery of Spain is for the most part Oriental j 
and the ruling principle of its preparation is stewing ; for, from 
a scarcity of fuel, roasting is almost unknown ; their notion of 
which is putting meat into a pan, setting it in hot ashes, and then 
covering the lid with burning embers. The pot, or olla, has 
accordingly become a synonyme for the dinner of Spaniards, just 
as beefsteaks or frogs are vulgarly supposed to constitute the 
whole bill of fare of two other mighty nations. Wherever meats 
are bad and thin, the sauce is very important ; it is based in 
Spain on oil, garlic, saffron, and red peppers. In hot countries, 
where beasts are lean, oil supplies the place of fat, as garlic does 
the want of flavor, while a stimulating condiment excites or cur- 
ries up the coats of a languid stomach. It has been said of our 
heretical countrymen that we have but one form of sauce — melted 
butter — and a hundred different forms of religion, whereas in 
orthodox Spain there is but one of each, and, as with religion, so 
to change this sauce would be little short of heresy. As to color, 
it carries that rich burnt umber, raw sienna tint, which Murillo 
imitated so well ; and no wonder, since he made his particular 
brown from baked olla bones, whence it was extracted, as is done 
to this day by those Spanish painters who indulge in meat. This 
brown negro de hueso color is the livery of tawny Spain, where all 
is brown from the Sierra Morena to duskier man. Of such hue 
is his cloak, his terra-cotta house, his wife, his ox, his ass, and 
everything that is his. This sauce has not only the same color, 
but the same flavor everywhere ; hence the difficulty of making 
out the material of which any dish is composed. Not Mrs. Glass 
herself could tell, by taste at least, whether the ingredients of the 
cauldron be hare or cat, cow or calf, the aforesaid ox or ass. It 
puzzles even the acumen of a Frenchman ; for it is still the great 
boast of the town of Olvera that they served up some donkeys as 



SCARCITY OF PROVISIONS. 



rations to a Buonapartist detachment. All this is very Oriental. 
Isaac could not distinguish tame kid from wild venison, so per- 
plexing was the disguise of the savory sauce ; and yet his senses 
of smell and touch were keen, and his suspicions of unfair cooking 
were awakened. A prudent diner, therefore, except when forced 
to become his own cook, will never look too closely into the things 
of the kitchen if he wishes to live a quiet life ; for quien las cosas 
mucho apura, no vive vida segura. 

All who ride or run through the Peninsula, will read thirst in 
the arid plains, and hunger in the soil-denuded hills, where those 
who ask for bread will receive stones. The knife and fork ques- 
tion has troubled every warrior in Spain, from Henri IV. down 
to Wellington ; '■' subsistence is the great difficulty always found" 
is the text of a third of the Duke's wonderful despatches. This 
scarcity of food is implied in the very name of Spain, i:noivia, 
which means poverty and destitution, as well as in the term 
Bisonos, wanters, which long has been a synonyme for Spanish 
soldiers, who are always, as the Duke described them, " hors de 
combat," " always wanting in every thing at the critical mo- 
ment." Hunger and thirst have ever been, and are, the best 
defenders of the Peninsular against the invader. On sierra and 
steppe these gaunt sentinels keep watch and ward, and, on the 
scarecrow principle, protect this paradise, as they do the infernal 
regions of Virgil : — 

" Malesuada fames et turpis egestas 
Horribiles visu." 

A riding tour through Spain has already been likened to serv- 
ing a campaign ; and it was a saying of the Grand Conde, " If 
you want to know what want is, carry on a war in Spain." Yet, 
notwithstanding the thousands of miles which we have ridden, 
never have we yet felt that dire necessity, which has been kept 
at a respectable distance by a constant unremitting attention to 
the proverb, A man forewarned is forearmed. Homhre prevenido 
nunca fu vencido, there is nothing like precaution and provision. 
" If you mean to dine," writes the all-providing Duke to Lord Hill 
from Moraleja, " you had hetter hring your things, as I shall have 

PART I. 7 



122 TilE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

nothing with me ;" — the ancient Bursal fashion holds good on 
Spanish roads : — 

" Regula Bursalis est omni tempore talis, 
Prandia fer tecuaij si vis comedere mecum." 

A man who is prepared, is never beaten or starved ; therefore, 
as the valorous Dalgetty has it, a prudent man will always vict- 
ual himself in Spain with vivers for three days at least, and his 
cook, like Sancho Panza, should have nothing else in his head, 
but thoughts how to convey the most eatables into his ambulant 
larder. 

He must set forth from every tolerable-sized town with an 
ample supply of tea, sugar, coffee, brandy, good oil, wine, salt, 
to say nothing of solids. The having something ready gives him 
leisure to forage and make ulterior preparations. Those who 
have a corjJS de reserve to fall back upon — say a cold turkey and 
a ham — can always convert any spot in the desert into an oasis ; 
at the same time the connection between body and soul may be kept 
up by trusting to venta luck, of which more anon ; it offers, how- 
ever, but a miserable existence to persons of judgment. And 
even when this precaution of provision be not required, there 
are never wanting in Spain the poor and hungry, to whom the 
taste of meat is almost unknown, and to whom these crumbs 
that fall from the rich man's table are indeed a feast ; the 
relish and gratitude with which these fragments are devoured do 
as much good to the heart of the donor as to the stomach of the 
donees, for the best medicines of the poor are to be found in 
the cellars, kitchens, and hampers of the rich. All servants 
should be careful of their traps and stores, which are liable 
to be pilfered and plundered in ventas, where the elite of 
society is not always assembled ; the luggage should be well 
corded, for the devil is always a gleaming, ata al saco, ya espiga 
el diahlo. 

Formerly all travellers of rank carried a silver olla with a key, 
the guardacena, the save supper. This ingenious contrivance has 
furnished matter for many a pleasantry in picaresque tales and 
farces. Madame Daunoy gives us the history of what befel the 
good Archbishop of Burgos and his orthodox olla. 



HARES AND RABBITS. 



There is nothing in life like making a good start ; thus the 
party arrives safely at the first resting-place. The cook must 
never appear to have anything when he anives at an inn ; he 
must get from others all he can, and much is to be had for asking 
and crying, as even a Spanish Infante knows — the child that 
does not cry is not suckled, quien no llora, no mama ; the artiste 
must never fall back on his own reservoirs except in cases of 
absolute need ; during the day he must open his eyes and ears 
and must pick up everything eatable, and where he can and 
when he can. By keeping a sharp look-out and going quietly to 
work the cook may catch the hen and her chickens too. All is 
fish that comes into the net, and, like Buonaparte and his mar- 
shals, nothing should be too great for his ambition, nothing too 
small for his rapacity. Of course he will pay for his collections, 
which the aforesaid gentry did not: thus fruit, onions, salads, 
which, as they must be bought somewhere, had better be secured 
whenever they turn up. The peasants, who are sad poachers, 
will constantly hail travellers from the fields with offers of par- 
tridges, rabbits, melons, hares, which always jump up, in this pays 
de I'imprevu when you least expect it: Salta la liebre cuando 
menos uno jriensa. 

Notwithstanding Don Quixote thought that it augured bad 
luck to meet with a hare on entering a village, let not a bold trav- 
eller be scared, but forthwith stew the omen ; a hare, as in the 
time of Martial, is considered by Spaniards to be the glory of 
edible quadrupeds, and to this day no old stager ever takes a rab- 
bit when he can get a hare, dperro viejo ecliale liebre y no conejo. 
In default however of catching one, rabbits may always be bag- 
ged. Spain abounds with them to such a degree, that ancient 
naturalists thought the animal indigenous, and went so far as to 
derive the name Spain from Sephan, the rabbit, which the Phoe- 
nicians found here for the first time. Be that as it may, the long- 
eared timid creature appears on the early Iberian coins, as it 
will long do on her wide wastes and tables. By the bye, a ready- 
stewed rabbit or hare is to be eschewed as suspicious in a venta : 
at the same time, if the consumer does not find out that it is a 
cat, thei'e is no great harm done — ignorance is bliss ; let him not 
know it, lie is not robbed at all. It is a pity to dispel his gas- 



1-24 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

troiiomic delusion, as it is the knowledge of the cheat that kills, 
and not the cat. Pol ! me occidistis, amici. The cook therefore 
should ascertain beforehand what are the bona fide ingredients of 
every dish that he sets before his lord. 

In going into the kitchens of the Peninsula, precedence must 
on every account be given to the olla : this word means at once 
a species of prepared food, and the earthenware utensil in which 
it is dressed, just as our term dish is applicable to the platter 
and to what is served on it. Into this olla it may be affirmed 
that the whole culinary genius of Spain is condensed, as the 
mighty Jinn was into a gallipot, according to the Arabian Night 
tales. The lively and gastronomic French, who are decidedly 
the leaders of European civilization in the kitchen, deride the 
barbarous practices of the Gotho-Iberians, as being darker than 
Erebus and more ascetic than eesthetic ; to credit their authors, 
a Peninsular breakfast consists of a teaspoonful of chocolate, a 
dinner, of a knob of garlic soaked in water, and a supper, of a 
paper cigarette ; and according to their parfait cuisinier, the olla 
is made of two cigars boiled in three gallons of water — but this 
is a calumny, a mere invention devised by the enemy. 

The olla is only well made in Andalucia, and there alone in 
careful, well-appointed houses ; it is called a puchero in the rest 
of Spain, where it is but a poor atfair, made of dry beef, or rather 
cow, boiled with garbanzos or chick peas, and a few sausages. 
These garbanzos are the vegetable, the potato of the land ; and 
their use argues a low state of horticultural knowledge. The 
taste for them was introduced by the Carthaginians — the puis pu- 
nica, which (like the fudes jmnica, an especial ingredient in all 
Spanish governments and finance) afforded such merriment to 
Plautus, that he introduced the chick-pea eating Poenus, pultiph- 
agonides, speaking Punic, just as Shakspere did the toasted-cheese 
eating Welshman talking Welsh. These garbanzos require much 
soaking, being otherwise hard as bullets ; indeed, a lively French- 
man, after what he calls an apology for a dinner, compared them, 
in his empty stomach, as he was jumbled away in the dilly, to 
peas rattling in a child's drum. 

The veritable olla — the ancient time-lionored olla podrida, or 
pot pourri — the epithet is now obsolete — is difficult to be made : 



THE OLLA PODRIDA. 125 

a tolerable one is never to be eaten out of Spain, since it re- 
quires many Spanish things to concoct it, and much care ; the 
cook must throw his whole soul into the pan, or rather pot ; it 
may be made in one, but two are better. They must be of 
earthenware ; for, like the French pot au feu, the dish is good 
for nothing when made in an iron or copper vessel ; take there- 
fore two, and put them on their separate stoves with water. 
Place into No. 1, Garianzos, which have been placed to soak 
over-night. Add a good piece of beef, a chicken, a large piece 
of bacon ; let it boil once and quickly ; then let it simmer ; it 
requires four or five hours to be well done. Meanwhile place 
into No. 2, with water, whatever vegetables are to be had : let- 
tuces, cabbage, a slice of gourd, of beef, carrots, beans, celery, 
endive, onions and garlic, long peppers. These must be previ- 
ously well washed and cut, as if they were destined to make a 
salad : then add red sausages, or " chorizos y" half a salted pig's 
face, which should have been soaked over-night. When all is 
sufficiently boiled, strain oflf the water, and throw it away. Re- 
member constantly to skim the scum of both saucepans. When 
all this is sufficiently dressed, take a large dish, lay in the bottom 
the vegetables, the beef in the centre, flanked by the bacon, 
chicken, and pig's face. The sausages should be arranged around, 
en couronne ; pour over some of the soup of No. 1, and serve 
hot, as Horace did : " Uncta satis — ponuntur oluscula lardo." 
No violets come up to the perfume which a coming olla casts be- 
fore it ; the mouth-watering bystanders sigh, as they see and 
smell the rich freight steaming away from them. 

This is the olla en grancle, such as Don Quixote says was eaten 
only by canons and presidents of colleges ; like turtle-soup, it is 
so rich and satisfactory that it is a dinner of itself. A worthy 
dignitary of Seville, in the good old times, before reform and ap- 
propriation had put out the churches' kitchen fire, and whoss 
daily pot-luck was transcendental, told us, as a wrinkle, that hs 
on feast-days used turkeys instead of chickens, and added two 
sharp Ronda apples, and three sweet potatoes of Malaga. His 
advice is worth attention : he was a good Roman Catholic canon, 
who believed everything, absolved everything, drank everything, 
ate everything, and digested everything. In fact, as a general 



126 THE SPANlARDa AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

rule, anything that is good in itself is good for an olla, provided, 
as old Spanish books always conclude, that it contains nothing 
contrary to the holy mother church, to orthodoxy, and to good 
manners — " que no contiene cosa que se ojwnga a nuestra madre 
Iglesia, y santa fe caioUca, y buenas costuinbres.'^ Such an olla 
as this is not to be got on the road, but may be made to restore 
exhausted nature when halting in the cities. Of course, every 
olla must everywhere be made according to what can be got. In 
private families the contents of No. 1, the soup, is served up with 
bread in a tureen, and the frugal table decked with the separate 
contents of the olla in separate platters ; the remains coldly serve, 
or are warmed up, for supper. 

The vegetables and bacon are absolute necessaries ; without 
the former an olla has neither grace nor sustenance ; la olla sin 
verdura, ni tiene gracia ni hartura, while the latter is as essential 
in this stew as a text from Saint Augustine is in a sermon : 

No hay olla sin tocino 
Ni sermon sin Agastino. 

Bacon throughout the length and breadth of the Peninsula is 
more honored than this, or than any one or all the fathers of the 
church of Rome ; the hunger after the flesh of the pig is equalled 
only by the thirst for the contents of what is put afterwards into 
his skin ; and with reason, for the pork of Spain has always 
been, and is, unequalled in flavor ; the bacon is fat and flavored, 
the sausages delicious, and the hams transcendantly superlative, 
to use the very expression of Diodorus Siculus, a man of great 
taste, learning, and judgment. Of all the things of Spain, no 
one need feeling ashamed to plead guilty to a predilection and 
preference to the pig. A few particulars may be therefore par- 
doned. 

In Spain pigs are more numerous even than asses, since they 
pervade the provinces. As those of Estremadura, the Hampshire 
of the Peninsula, are the most esteemed, they alone will be now 
noticed. That province, although so little visited by Spaniards 
or strangers, is full of interest to the antiquarian and naturalist ; 
and many are the rides at different periods which we have made 
through its tangled ilex groves, and over its depopulated aa9 



PIGS OF ESTREMADURA. 127 

aromatic wastes. A granaiy under Roman and Moor, its very- 
existence seems to be all but forgotten by the Madrid govern- 
ment, who have abandoned it Xofera. naturce, to wandering sheep, 
locusts, and swine. The entomology of Estremadura is endless, 
and perfectly uninvestigated — de minimis non curat Hispanus ; 
but the heavens and earth teem with the minute creation ; there 
nature is most busy and prolific, where man is most idle and un- 
productive ; and in these lonely wastes, where no human voice 
disturbs the silence, the balmy air resounds with the buzzing hum 
of multitudinous insects, which career about on their business of 
love or food without settlements or kitchens, rejoicing in the fine 
weather which is the joy of their tiny souls, and short-lived pleas- 
ant existence. Sheep, pigs, locusts, and doves are the only liv- 
ing things which the traveller will see for hours and hours. Now 
and then a man occurs, just to prove how rare his species is 
here. 

Vast districts of this unreclaimed province are covered with 
woods of oak, beech, and chesnut ; but these park-like scenes 
have no charms for native eyes ; blind to the picturesque, they 
only are thinking of the number of pigs which can be fattened 
on the mast and acorns, which are sv/eeter and larger than those 
of our oaks. The acorns are still called bellota, the Arabic hollot 
— ielot being the Scriptural term for the tree and the gland, 
which, with water, formed the original diet of the aboriginal 
Iberian, as well as of his pig; when dry, the acorns were ground, 
say the classical authors, into bread, and, when fresh, they were 
served up as the second course. And in our time ladies of high 
rank at Madrid constantly ate them at the opera and elsewhere ; 
they were the presents sent by Sancho Panza's wife to the Duch- 
ess, and formed the text on which Don Quixote preached so elo- 
quently to the goatherds, on the joys and innocence of the golden 
age and pastoral happiness, in which they constituted the founda- 
tion of the kitchen. 

The pigs during the greater part of the year are left to support 
nature as they can, and in gauntness resemble those greyhound- 
looking animals which pass for porkers in France. When the 
acorns are ripe and fall from the trees, the greedy animals are 
turned out in legions from the villages, which more correctly may 



128 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

be termed coalitions of pigsties. Tliey return from the woods at 
night, of their own accord, and without a swine's general. On 
entering the hamlet, all set ofl' at a full gallop, like a legion pos- 
sessed with devils, in a handicap for home, into which each single 
pig turns, never making a mistake. We have more than once 
been caught in one of these pig-deluges, and nearly carried away 
horse and all, as befell Don Quixote, when really swept away by 
the " far-spread and grunting drove." In his own home each 
truant is welcomed like a prodigal son or a domestic father. 
These pigs are the pets of the peasants ; they are brought up 
with their children, and partake, as in Ireland, in the domestic 
discomforts of their cabins; they are universally respected, and 
justly, for it is this animal who pays the " rint;" in fact, are the 
citizens, as at Sorrento, and Estremenian man is quite a secon- 
dary formation, and created to tend herds of these swine, who 
lead the happy life of former Toledan dignitaries, with the addi- 
tional advantage of becoming more valuable when dead. 

It is astonishing how rapidly they thrive on their sweet food ; 
indeed it is the whole duty of a good pig — animal propter con- 
vivia natum — to get as fat and as soon as he can, and then die 
for the good of his country. It may be observed for the inform- 
ation of our farmers, that those pigs which are dedicated to St. 
Anthony, on whom a sow is in constant attendance, as a dove 
was on Venus, gets the soonest fat ; therefore in Spain young 
porkers are sprinkled with holy water on his day, but those of 
other saints are less propitious, for the killing takes place about 
the 10th and 11th of November, or, as Spaniards date it por el 
St. Andres, on the day of St. Andrews, or on that of St. Martin ; 
hence the proverb " every man and pig has his St. Martin or his 
fatal hour, a cada puerco su San Martin." 

The death of a fat pig is as great an event in Spanish families, 
who generally fatten up one, as the birth of a baby ; nor can the 
fact be kept secret, so audible is his announcement. It is con- 
sidered a delicate attention on the part of the proprietor to cele- 
brate the auspicious event by sending a portion of the chitterlings 
to intimate friends. The Spaniard's proudest boast is that his 
blood is pure, that he is not descended from pork-eschewing Jew 
or Moor — a fact which the pig genus, could it reason, would deep- 



PORK OF MONTANCHES. 129 

ly deplore. The Spaniard doubtless has been so great a consumer 
of pig, from grounds religious, as well as gastronomic. The eat- 
ing or not eating the flesh of an animal deemed unclean by the 
impure infidel, became a test of orthodoxy, and at once of correct 
faith as well as of good taste ; and good bacon, as has been just 
observed, is wedded to sound doctrine and St. Augustine. The 
Spanish name Tocino is derived from the Arabic Tachim, which 
signifies fat. 

The Spaniards however, although tremendous consumers of 
the pig, whether in the salted form or in the skin, have to the 
full the Oriental abhorrence to the unclean animal in the abstract. 
Muy puerco is their last expression for all that is most dirty, nas- 
ty, or disgusting. Muy cochina never is forgiven, if applied to 
woman, as it is equivalent to the Italian Vacca, and to the canine 
feminine compliment bandied among our fair sex at Billingsgate ; 
nor does the epithet imply moral purity or chastity ; indeed in 
Castilian euphuism the unclean animal was never to be named 
except in a periphrasis, or with an apology, which is a singular 
remnant of the Moorish influence on Spanish manners. Haluf 
or swine is still the Moslem's most obnoxious term for the Chris- 
tians, and is applied to this day by the ungrateful Algerines to 
their French bakers and benefactors, nay even to the '■'■illustre 
Bugeaud.'" 

The capital of the Estremenian pig-districts is Montanches — 
mons anguis — and doubtless the hilly spot where the Duke of 
Arcos fed and cured " ces petits jambons vermeils," which the 
Due de St. Simon ate and admired so much; "ces jambons ont 
un parfum si admirable, un gout si releve et si vivifiant, qu'on en 
est surpris : il est impossible de rien manger si exquis." His 
Grace of Arcos used to shut up the pigs in places abounding in 
vipers, on which they fattened. Neither the pigs, dukes, nor 
their toad-eaters seemed to have been poisoned by these exquisite 
vipers. According to Jonas Harrington, the finest Irish pigs were 
those that fed on dead rebels : one Papist Porker, the Enniscorthy 
boar, was sent as a show, for having eaten a Protestant parson : 
he was put to death and dishonored by not being made bacon of. 

Naturalists have remarked that the rattlesnakes in America re- 
tire before their consuming enemy, the pig, who is thus the gas- 
7* 



130 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

tador or pioneer of the new world's civilization, just as Pizarro, 
who was suckled by a sow, and tended swine in his youth, was 
its conqueror. Be that as it may, Montanches is illustrious in 
pork, in which the burgesses go the whole hog, whether in the 
rich red sausage, the chorizo, or in the savory piquant emiuchados, 
which are akin to the viortadelle of Bologna, only less hard, and 
usually boiled before eating, though good also raw ; they consist 
of the choice bits of the pig seasoned with condiments, with which, 
as if by retribution, the paunch of the voracious animal is filled ; 
the ruling passion strong in death. We strongly recommend 
Juan Valiente, who recently was the alcalde of the town, to the 
lover of delicious hams; each jamon averages about 12 lb. ; they 
are sold at the rate of 7-|- reales, about 18d., for the liira carni- 
cera, which weighs 32 of our ounces. The duties in England are 
now very trifling ; we have for many years had an annual supply 
of these delicacies, through the favor of a kind friend at the Pu- 
erto. The fat o{ these jcwiones, whence our word ham and gam- 
mon, when they are boiled, looks like melted topazes, and the fla- 
vor defies language, although we have dined on one this very day, 
in order to secure accuracy and undeniable prose, like Lope de 
Vega, who, according to his biographer, Dr. Montalvan, never 
could write poetry unless inspired by a rasher ; " Toda es cosa 
vil," said he, " a donde falta un perniV (in which word we re- 
cognize the precise perna whereby Horace was restored) : — 

Therefore all writing is a sham, 
Where there is wanting Spanish ham. 

Those of Gallicia and Catalonia are also celebrated, but are 
not to be compared for a moment with those of Montanches, which 
are fit to set before an emperor. Their only rivals are the 
sweet hams of the Alpujarras, which are made at Trevelez, a pig- 
hamlet situated under the snowy mountains on the opposite side 
of Granada, to which also we have made a pilgrimage. They 
are called dulces, or sweet, because scarcely any salt is used in 
the curing ; the ham is placed in a weak pickle for eight days, 
and is then hung up in the snow ; it can only be done at thig 
place, where the exact temperature necessary is certain. Those 
of our readers who are curious in Spanish eatables will find ex- 



THE GUISADO. 131 



cellent garbanzos, chorizos, red pepper, chocolate, and Valencian 
sweetmeats, &c., at Figul's, a most worthy Catalan, whose shop 
is at No. 10, Woburn Buildings, St. Pancras, London ; the local- 
ity is scarcely less visited than Montanches, but the penny-post 
penetrates into this terra incognita. 

So much space has been filled witli these meritorious bacons 
and hams, that we must be brief with our remaining bill of fare. 
For a pisto or meat omelette take eggs, which are to be got almost 
everywhere ; see that they are fresh, by being pellucid ; beat 
these huevos trasparentes well up ; chop up onions and whatever 
savory herbs you have with you ; add small slices of any meat 
out of your hamper, cold turkey, ham, &c. ; beat it all up to- 
gether and fry it quickly. Most Spaniards have a peculiar knack 
in making these tortillas, revueltas de huevos, which, to fastidious 
stomachs, are, as in most parts of the Continent, a sure resource 
to fall back upon. 

The Guisado, or stew, like the olla, can only be really done 
,in a Spanish pipkin, and of those which we import, the Anda- 
lucian ones draw flavor out the best. This dish is always well 
done by every cook in every venta, barring that they are apt to 
put in bad oil, and too much garlic, pepper, and saffi'on. Super- 
intend it therefore, yourself, and take hare, partridge, i-abbit, 
chicken, or whatever you may have foraged on the road ; it is 
capital also with pheasant, as we proved only yesterday ; cut it 
up, save the blood, the liver, and the giblets ; do not wash the 
pieces, but dry them in a cloth ; fry them with onions in a tea- 
cup of oil till browned ; take an olla, put in these bits with the oil, 
equal portions of wine and water, but stock is better than water : 
claret answers well, Valdepenas better ; add a bit of bacon, 
onions, garlic, salt, pepper, pimientos, a bunch of thyme or herbs ; 
let it simmer, carefully skimming it ; half an hour before serving 
add the giblets ; when done, which can be tested by feeling with 
a fork, serve hot. The stew should be constantly stirred with a 
wooden spoon, and grease, the ruin of all cookery, carefully 
skimmed off as it rises to the surface. When made with proper 
care and v/ith a good salad, it forms a supper for a cardinal, or 
for Santiago himself. 

Another excellent but very difficult dish is the polio con arroz, 



132 THE SPANIARDS AND TPIEIR COUNTRY. 

or the chicken and rice. It is eaten in perfection in Valencia, 
and therefore is often called Polio Valenciano. Cut a good fowl 
into pieces, wipe it clean, but do not put it into water ; take a 
saucepan, put in a wine-glass of iine oil, heat the oil well, put in 
a bit of bread ; let it fry, stirring it about with a wooden spoon ; 
when the bread is browned take it out and throw it away : put in 
two cloves of garlic, taking care that it does not burn, as, if it 
does, it will turn bitter ; stir the garlic till it is fried ; put in the 
chicken, keep stirring it about while it fries, then put in a little 
salt and stir again ; whenever a sound of cracking is heard, stir 
it again ; when the chicken is well browned or gilded, dorado, 
which will take from five to ten minutes, stirring constantly, put 
in chopped onions, three or four chopped red or green chilis, and 
stir about ; if once the contents catch the pan, the fish is spoiled ; 
then a^ tomatas, divided into quarters, and parsley ; take two 
teacupsful of rice, mix all well up together ; add hot stock enough 
to cover the whole over ; let it boil once, and then set it aside to 
simmer until the rice becomes tender and done. The great art 
consists in having the rice turned out granulated and separate, 
not in a pudding state, which is sure to be the case if a cover be 
ever put over the dish, which condenses the steam. 

It may be objected, that these dishes, if so curious in the cook- 
ing, are not likely to be well done in the rude kitchens of a venta; 
but practice makes perfect, and the whole mind and intellect of 
the artist is concentrated on one object, and not frittered away by 
a multiplicity of dishes, the rock on which many cooks founder, 
where more dinners are sacrificed to the eye and ostentation. One 
dish and one thing at a time is the golden rule of Bacon ; many, 
are the anxious moments that we have spent over the rim of a 
Spanish pipkin, watching, life set on the cast, the Avizen she- 
mummy, whose mind, body, and spoon were absorbed in a single 
mess: Well, my mother, que tal? what sort of a stew is it? 
Let me smell and taste the salsa. Good, good j it promises 
much. Vamos Senora — go on, my lady, thy spoon once more — 
how, indeed, can oil, wine, and nutritive juices amalgamate with- 
out frequent stirring ? Well, very well it is. Now again, 
daughter of my soul, thy fork. Asi, asi ; thus, thus. Per 
Bacco, by Bacchus, tender it is — may heaven repay thee ! In- 



STARRED EGGS. 133 



deed, from this tenderness of the meat arises ease of digestion ; 
here, pot and fire do half the work of the poor stomach, which 
too often in inns elsewhere is overtaxed, like its owner, and con- 
demned to hard labor and a brickbat beefsteak. 

Poached eggs are at all events within the grasp of the meanest 
culinary capacity. They are called Huevos estrellados, starred 
eggs. When fat bacon is wedded to them, the dish is called 
Huevos con magras j not that magras here means thin as to con- 
dition, but rather as to slicing ; and these slices again, ai'e posi- 
tively thick ones when compared to those triumphs of close 
shaving which are carved at Vauxhall. To make this dish, with 
or without the bacon, take eggs ; the contents of the shell are to 
be emptied into a pan filled with hot oil or lard, manteca de puerco, 
pigs's butter ; it must be remembered, although Strabo mentions 
as a singular fact that the Iberians made use of butter instead of 
oil, that now it is just the reverse ; a century ago butter was 
only sold by the apothecaries, as a sort of ointment, and it used 
to be iniquitous. Spaniards generally used either Irish or Flem- 
ish salted butter, and from long habit thought fresh butter quite 
insipid ; indeed, they have no objection to its being a trifle or so 
rancid, just as some aldermen like high venison. In the present 
age of progress the Queen Christina has a fancy dairy at Mad- 
rid, where she makes a few pounds of fresh butter, of which a 
small portion is or was sold, at five shillings the pound, to foreign 
ambassadors for their breakfast. Recently more attention has 
been paid to the dairy in the Swiss-like provinces of the north- 
west. The Spaniards, like the heroes in. the Iliad, seldom boil 
their food (eggs excepted,) at least not in water ; for frying, after 
all, is but boiling in oil. 

Travellers should be cautioned against the captivating name 
of manteca Valenciana. This Valencian butter is composed (for 
the cow has nothing to do with it) of equal portions of garlic and 
hogs' lard pounded together in a mortar ; it is then spread on 
bread, just as we do arsenic to destroy vermin. It, however, 
agrees well with the peasants, as does the soup of their neighbors 
the Catalans, which is made of bread and garlic in equal portions 
fried in oil and diluted with hot water. This mess is called sopa 
de gato, probably from making cats, not Catalans, sick. 



134 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

One thing, however, is truly delicious in Spain — the salad, to 
compound which, says the Spanish proverb, four persons are 
wanted : a spendthrift for oil, a miser for vinegar, a counsellor 
for salt, and a madman to stir it all up. N.B. Get the biggest 
bowl you can in order that this latter operation may be thoroughly 
performed. The salad is the glory of every French dinner, and 
the disgrace of most in England, even in good houses, and from 
two simple causes ; first, from the putting in eggs, mustard, and 
other heretical ingredients, and, secondly, from making it long 
before it is wanted to be eaten, whereby the green materials, 
which should be crisp and fresh, become sodden and leathery. 
Prepare, therefore, your salad in separate vessels, and never mix 
the sauce with the herbs until the instant that you are ready to 
transfer the refreshing result to your plate. Take lettuce, or 
whatever salad is to be got ; do not cut it with a steel knife, 
which turns the edges of the wounds black, and communicates an 
evil flavor ; let the leaf be torn from the stem, which throw 
away, as it is hard and bitter ; wash the mass in many waters, 
and rinse it in napkins till dry ; take a small bowl, put in equal 
quantities of vinegar and water, a teaspoonful of pepper and salt, 
and four times as much oil as vinegar and water, mix the same 
well together ; prepare in a plate whatever fine herbs can be got, 
especially tarragon and chervil, which must be chopped small. 
Pour the sauce over the salad, powder it with these herbs, and 
lose no time in eating. For making a much worse salad than 
this, a foreign artiste in London used some years ago to charge 
a guinea. 

Any remarks on Spanish salads would be incomplete without 
some account of gazpacho, that vegetable soup, or floating salad, 
which during the summer forms the food of the bulk of the peo- 
ple in the torrid portions of Spain. This dish is of Arabic origin, 
as its name, " soaked bread," implies. This most ancient Orien- 
tal Roman and Moorish refection is composed of onions, garlic, 
cucumbers, chilis, all chopped up very small and mixed with 
crumbs of bread, and then put into a bowl of oil, vinegar, and 
fresh water. Reapers and agricultural laborers could never 
stand the sun's fire without this cooling acetous diet. This was 
the o'i;vxqaiog of the Greeks, the posca, potable food, meat and 



GAZPACHO. 



drink, ])otus et esca, which formed part of the rations of the 
Roman soldiers, and which Adrian (a Spaniard) delighted to 
share with them, and into which Boaz at meal-time invited Ruth 
to dip her morsel. Dr. Buchanan found some Syrian Christians 
who still called it ail, ail, Hil Hila, for which our Saviour was 
supposed to have called on the Cross, when those who understood 
that dialect gave it him from the vessel which was full of it for 
the Guard. In Andalucia, during the summer, a bowl of gaz- 
pacho is commonly ready in every house of an evening, and is 
partaken of by every person who comes in. It is not easily 
digested by strangers, who do not require it quite so much as the 
natives, whose souls are more parched and dried up, and who 
perspire less. The components, oil, vinegar, and bread, are all 
that is given out to the lower class of laborers by farmers who 
profess to feed them ; two cow's horns, the most primitive form 
of bottle and cup, are constantly seen suspended on each side of 
their carts, and contain this provision, with which they compound 
their migas : this consists of crumbs of bread fried in oil, with 
pepper and garlic ; nor can a stronger proof be given of the com- 
mon poverty of their fare than the common expression, " huenas 
migas hay," there are good crumbs, being equivalent to capital 
eating. In very cold weather the mess in warmed, and then is 
called gazpacho caliente. Oh ! dura messorum ilia — oh ! the iron 
mess digesting stomachs of ploughmen. 



136 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 



CHAPTER XII. 



Drinks of Spain — "Water — Irrigation — Fountains — Spanish Thirstiness — 
The Alcarraza — Water carriers — Ablutions — Spanish Chocolate — Agraz 
— Beer lemonade. 

In dipping into Spanisli liquids we shall not mix wine with 
water, but keep them separate, as most Spaniards do ; the latter 
is entitled to rank first, by those who prefer the opinion of Pin- 
dar, who held water to be the best of things, to that of Anacreon, 
who was not member of any temperance society. The pro- 
found regard for water of a Spaniard is quite Oriental ; at the 
same time, as his blood is partly Gothic and partly Arab, his 
allegiance is equally mixed and divided ; thus, if he adores the 
juice of flints like a Moslem, he venerates the juice of the grape 
like a German. 

Water is the blood of the earth, and the purificator of the 
body in tropical regions and in creeds which, being regulated by 
latitudes, enforce frequent ablution ; loud are the praises of Arab 
writers of wells and water-brooks, and great is their fountain 
and pool worship, the dipping in which, if their miraculous cases 
are to be credited, effects more and greater cures than those 
worked by hydropathists at Grafenberg ; a Spaniards's idea of a 
paradise on earth, of a " garden," is a well- watered district; 
irrigation is fertility and wealth, and therefore, as in the East, 
wells, brooks, and water-courses have been a constant source of 
bickering ; nay the very word rioality has been derived from 
these quarrel and law-suit engendering rivers, as the name given 
to the well for which the men of Gerah and Isaac differed, was 
called esek from the contention. 

The flow of waters cannot be mistaken ; the most dreary 
sterility edges the most luxuriant plenty, the most hopeless bar- 
renness borders on the richest vegetation ; the line of demarca- 



FOUNTAmS. 



lion is perceived from afar, dividing the tawny desert from the 
verdurous garden. The Moors who came from the "East were 
fully sensible of the value of this element ; they collected the 
best springs with the greatest care, they dammed up narrow 
gorges into reservoirs, they constructed pools and underground 
cisterns, stemmed valleys with aqueducts that poured in rivers, 
and in a word exercised a magic influence over this element, 
which they guided and wielded at their will ; their system of 
irrigation was far too perfect to be improved by Spaniard, or even 
destroyed. In those favored districts where their artificial con- 
trivances remain. Flora still smiles and Ceres rejoices with 
Pomona ; wherever the ravages of war or the neglect of man 
have ruined them, the garden has relapsed into the desert, and 
plains once overflowing with corn, gladness, and population, have 
shrunk into sad and silent deserts. 

The fountains of Spain, especially in the hotter and more 
Moorish districts, are numerous ; they cannot fail to strike and 
please the stranger, whether they be situated in the public walk, 
garden, market-place, or private' dwelling. Their mode of sup- 
ply is simple ; a river which flows down from the hills is di- 
verted at a certain height from its source, and is carried in an ar- 
tificial canal, which retains the original elevation, into a reservoir 
placed above the town which is to be served ; as the waters rise 
to their level, the force, body, and altitude of some of the columns 
thrown up are very great. In our cold country, where, except 
at Charing Cross, the stream is conveyed underground and un- 
seen, all this gush of waters, of dropping diamonds in the bright 
sun, which cools the air and gladdens the sight and ear, is un- 
known. Again there is a waste of the " article," which would 
shock a Chelsea Waterworks Director, and induce the rate-col- 
lector to refer to the fines as per Act of Parliament. The fond- 
est wish of those Spaniards who wear long-tailed coats, is to imi- 
tate those gentry ; they are ashamed of the patriarchal uncivil- 
ized system of their ancestors — much prefer the economical lead 
pipe to all this extravagant and gratuitous splashing — they love a 
turncock better than the most Oriental Rebecca who comes down 
to draw water. The fountains in Spain as in the East are the 
meeting and greeting places of womankind ; here they flock, old 



138 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

and young, infants and grandmothers. It is a sight to drive a 
water-color painter crazy, such is the color, costume, and group- 
ings, such is the clatter of tongues and crockery ; such is the life 
and action ; now trip along a bevy of damsel Hebes wilh upright 
forms and chamois step light yet true ; more graceful than opera- 
dancers, they come laughing and carolling along, poising on their 
heads pitchers, modelled after the antique, and after everything 
which a Sevres jug is not. It would seem that to draw water is 
a difficult operation, so long are they lingering near the sweet 
fountain's rim. It indeed is their al fresco rout, their tertulia ;. 
here for awhile the hand of woman labor ceases, and the urn 
stands still; here more than even after church mass, do the young 
discuss their dress and lovers, the middle-aged and mothers des- 
cant on babies and housekeeping ; all talk, and generally at once ; 
but gossip refresheth the daughters of Eve, whether in gilded 
boudoir or near mossy fountain, whose water, if a dash of scan- 
dal be added, becomes sweeter than eau sucree. 

The Iberians were decided water-drinkers, and this trait of 
their manners, which are modified by climate that changes not, 
still exists as the sun that regulates : the vinous Greek Athenseus 
was amazed that even rich Spaniards sliould prefer water to wine ; 
and to this day they are if possible curious about the latter's 
quality ; they will just drink the wine that grows the nearest, 
while they look about and enquire for the best water ; thus even 
our cook Francisco, who certainly had one of the best places in 
Seville and who although a good artiste was a better rascal — 
qualities not incompatible — preferred to sacrifice his interests ra- 
ther than go to Granada, because this man of the fire had heard 
that the water there was bad. 

The mother of the Arabs was tormented with thirst, which her 
Hispano-Moro children have inherited ; in fact in the dog-days, 
of which here there are packs, unless the mortal clay be fre- 
quently wetted it would crumble to bits like that of a figure mo- 
deller. Fire and water are the elements of Spain, whether at an 
auto de f^ or in a church-stoop ; with a cigar in his mouth a 
Spaniard smokes like Vesuvius, and is as diy, combustible, and 
inflammatory ; and properly to understand the truth of Solomon's 
remark, that cold water is to a thirsty soul as refreshing as good 



INTENSE HEAT. 



news, one must have experienced what thirst is in the exposed 
plains of the calcined Castiles, where coup de soleil is rife, and a 
gentleman on horseback's brains seem to be melting like Don 
Quixote's when Sancho put the curds into his helmit. It is just 
the countrj' to send a patient to, who is troubled with hydropho- 
bia. " Those rayes," to use the words of old Howell, " that do 
but warm you in England, do roast you here ; those beams that 
irradiate onely, and gild your honey-suckled fields, do here scorch 
and parch the chinky gaping soyle, and put too many wrinkles 
upon the face of your common mother." 

Tlien when the heavens and earth are on fire, and the sun 
drinks up rivers at one draught, when one burnt sienna tone per- 
vades the tawny ground, and the green herb is shrivelled up into 
black gunpowder, and the rare pale ashy olive-trees are blanched 
into the livery of the desert ; then, when the heat and harshness 
make even the salamander muleteers swear doubly as they toil 
along like demons in an ignited salitrose dust — then, indeed, will 
an Englishman discover that he is made of the same material, 
only drier, and learn to estimate water; but a good thirst is too 
serious an evil, too bordering on suffering, to be made, like an ap- 
petite, a matter of congratulation ; for when all fluids evaporate, 
and the blood thickens into currant jelly, and the nerves tighten 
up into the catgut of an overstrung fiddle, getting attuned to the 
porcupinal irritability of the tension of the mind, how the parched 
soul sighs for the comfort of a Scotch mist, and fondly turns back 
to the uvula-relaxing damps of Devon ! — then, in the blackhole- 
like thirst of the wilderness, every mummy hag rushing from a 
reed hut, with a porous cup of brackish water, is changed by the 
mirage into a Hebe, bearing the nectar of the immortals ; then 
how one longs for the most wretched Venta, which heat and thirst 
convert into the Clarendon, since in it at least will be found water 
and shade, and an escape from the god of fire ! Well may Span- 
ish historians boast, that his orb at the creation first shone over 
Toledo, and never since has set on the dominions of the great 
king, who, as we are assured by Senor Berni, " has the sun for 
his hat," — tiene al sol por su sombrero ; but humbler mortals who 
are not grandees of this solar system, and to whom a coup de 
soleil is neither a joke nor a metaphor, should stow away non- 



140 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

conductors of heat in the crown of their beavers. Thus Apollo 
himself preserved us. And oh ! ye our fair readers, who chance 
to run such risks, and value complexion, take for heaven's sake a 
parasol and an Alcarraza. 

This clay utensil — as its Arabic name al Karaset implies — is a 
porous refrigeratory vessel, in which water when placed in a cur- 
rent of hot air becomes chilled by evaporation ; it is to be seen 
hung up on poles dangling from branches, suspended to waggons 
— in short, is part and parcel of a Spanish scene in hot weather 
and localities ; every posada has rows of them at the entrance, 
and the first thing every one does on entering, before wishing 
even the hostess Good morning, or asking permission, is to take a 
full draught : all classes are learned on the subject, and although 
on the whole they cannot be accused of teetotalism, they are loud 
in their praises of the pure fluid. The common form of praise 
is agua miiy rica — very rich water. According to their proverbs, 
good water should have neither taste, smell, nor color, " ni sabor, 
olor, ni color" which neither makes men sick nor in debt, nor 
women widows, ^^ que no enferma, no adeuda, no enviuda ;" and 
besides being cheaper than wine, beer, or brandy, it does not 
brutalize the consumer, nor depi'ive him of his common sense or 
good manners. 

As Spaniards at all times are as dry as the desert or a sponge, 
selling water is a very active business ; on every alameda and 
prado shrill voices of the sellers of drinks and mouth combustibles 
— vendedores de combustibles de boca — are heard crjdng, " Fire, 
fire, candela — Water; who wants water?" — agua; qiiien quiere 
agua ? which, as these Orientals generally exaggerate, is des- 
cribed as masfresca que la nieve, or colder than snow ; and near 
them little Murillo-like urchins run about with lighted ropes like 
artillerymen for the convenience of smokers, that is. for every 
ninety and nine males out of a hundred ; while water-carriers, or 
rather retail pedestrian aqueducts, follow thirst like fire-engines ; 
the Aguador carries on his back, like his colleague in the East, a 
porous water-jar, with a little cock by which it is drawn out; he 
is usually provided with a small tin box strapped to his waist, 
and in which he stows away his glasses, brushes, and some light 
azucarillos — panales, which are made of sugar and white of egg, 



WANT OF CLEANLINESS. 



which Spaniards dip and dissolve in their drink. In the town, 
at particular stations water-mongers in wholesale have a shed, 
with ranges of jars, glasses, oranges, lemons, &c., and a bench or 
two on which the drinkers " untire themselves." In winter these 
are provided with an anafe or portable stove, which keeps a sup- 
ply of hot water, to take the chill off the cold, for Spaniards from 
a sort of dropsical habit, drink like fishes all the year round. 
Ferdinand the Catholic, on seeing a peasant drowned in a river, 
observed, " that he had never before seen a Spaniard who had 
had enough water." 

At the same time it must be remembered that this fluid is ap- 
plied with greater prodigality in washing their inside than their 
outside. Indeed, a classical author remarks that the Spaniards 
only learnt the use of hot water, as applicable to the toilette, from 
the Romans after the second Punic war. Their baths and thermce 
were destroyed by the Goths, because they tended to encourage 
effeminacy ; and those of the Moors were prohibited by the 
Gotho-Spaniards partly from similar reasons, but more from a 
religious hydrophobia. Ablutions and lustra! purifications formed 
an article of faith with the Jew and Moslem, with whom " clean- 
liness is godliness." The mendicant Spanish monks, according 
to their practice of setting up a directly antagonist principle, 
considered physical dirt as the test of moral purity and true faith ; 
and by dining and sleeping from year's end to year's end in the 
same unchanged woollen frock, arrived at the height of their am- 
bition, according to their view of the odor of sanctity, insomuch 
that Ximenez, who was himself a shirtless Franciscan, induced 
Ferdinand and Isabella, at the conquest of Granada, to close 
and abolish the Moorish baths. They forbade not only the Chris- 
tians but the Moors from using anything but holy water. Fire, 
not water, became the grand element of inquisitorial purifica- 
tion. 

The fair sex was warned by monks, who practised what they 
preached, that they should remember the cases of Susanna, Bath- 
sheba, and La Cava, whose fatal bathing under the royal palace 
at Toledo led to the downfall of the Gothic monarchy. Their 
aqueous anathemas extended not only to public, but to minutely 
private washings, regarding which Sanchez instructs the Spanish 



142 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

confessor to question his fair penitents, and not to absolve the 
over-washed. Many instances could be produced of the practi- 
cal working of this enjoined rule ; for instance Isabella, the fa- 
vorite daughter of Philip II., his eye, as he called her, made a 
solemn vow never to change her shift until Ostend was taken. 
The siege lasted three years, three months, and thirteen days. 
The royal garment acquired a tawny color, which was called 
Isabel by the courtiers, in compliment to the pious princess. 
Again, Southey relates that the devout Saint Eufraxia entered 
into a convent of 130 nuns, not one of whom had ever washed her 
feet, and the very mention of a bath was an abomination. These 
obedient daughters to their Capuchin confessors were what Gil de 
Avila termed a sweet garden of flowers, perfumed by the good 
smell and reputation of sanctity, " ameno jardin de jlores, olo- 
rosas por el huen odor y fama de santidad." Justice to the land 
of Castile soap requires us to observe that latterly, since the sup- 
pression of monks, both sexes, and the fair especially, have de- 
parted from the strict observance of the religious duties of their 
excellent grandmothers. Warm baths are now pretty generally 
established in the larger towns. At the same time, the interiors 
of bedrooms whether in inns or private houses, as well by the 
striking absence of glass and china utensils, which to English no- 
tions are absolute necessaries, as by the presence of French pie- 
dish basins, and duodecimo jugs, indicate that this " little damned 
spot" on the average Spanish hand, has not yet been quite rub- 
bed out. 

However hot the day, dusty the road, or long the journey, it 
has never been our fate to see a Spanish attendant use a single 
drop of water as a detergent, or, as polite writers say, '•' perform 
his ablutions ;" the constant habit of bathing and complete wash- 
ing is undoubtedly one reason why the French and other conti- 
nentals consider our soap-loving countrymen to be cracked. Un- 
der the Spanish Goths the Hemerobaptistse, or people who washed 
their persons once a day, were set down as heretics. The Duke 
of Frias, when a few years ago on a fortnight's visit to an Eng- 
lish lady, never once troubled his basins and jugs; he simply 
rubbed his face occasionally with the white of an egg, which, as 
Madame Daunoy records, was the only ablution of the Spanish 



ICED DRINKS. 143 



ladies in the time of Philip IV. ; but these details of the dressing- 
room are foreign to the use made in Spain of liquids in kitchen 
and parlor. 

One word on chocolate which is to a Spaniard what tea is to 
a Briton — coffee to a Gaul. It is to be had almost everywhere, 
and is always excellent ; the best is made by the nuns, who are 
great confectioners and compounders of sweetmeats, sugarplums 
and orange-flowers, water and comfits, 

" Et tous ces mets sucrts en p&.te, ou bien liquides 
Dont estomacs dcvots furent toujours ayides." 

It was long a disputed point whether chocolate did or did not 
break fast theologically, just as happened with coffee among the 
rigid Moslems. But since the learned Escobar decided that 
liqiddum non rumpit jejunium, a liquid does not break fast, it has 
become the universal breakfast of Spain. It is made just liquid 
enough to come within the benefit of clergy, that is, a spoon will 
almost stand up in it ; only a small cup is taken, una jicara, a 
Mexican word for the cocoa-nuts of which they were first made, 
generally with a bit of toasted bread or biscuit : as these jicaras 
have seldom any handles, they were used by the rich (as coffee- 
cups are among the Orientals) enclosed in little filigree cases of 
silver or gold ; some of these are very beautiful, made in the 
form of a tulip or lotus leaf, on a saucer of mother-o'-pearl. 
The flower is so contrived that, by a spring underneath, on rais- 
ing the saucer, the leaves fall back and disclose the cup to the 
lips, while, when put down, they re-close over it, and form a pro- 
tection against the flies. A glass of water should always be 
drunk after this chocolate, since the aqueous chasse neutralizes 
the bilious propensities of this breakfast of the gods, as Linnseus 
called chocolate. Tea and coffee have supplanted chocolate in 
England and France ; it is in Spain alone that we are carried 
back to the breakfasts of Belinda and of the wits at Button's ; 
in Spain exist, unchanged, the fans, the game of ombre, tresillo 
and the coclie de colleras, the coach and six, and other social 
usages of the age of Pope and the 'Spectator.' 

Cold liquids in the hot dry summers of Spain are necessaries, 
not luxuries ; snow and ice drinks are sold in the streets at prices 



144 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

so low as to be within the reach of the poorest classes ; the rich 
refrigerate themselves with agraz. This, the Moorish Hacaraz, 
is the most delicious and most refreshing drink ever devised by- 
thirsty mortal ; it is the new pleasure for which Xerxes wished in 
vain, and beats the " hock and soda water," the " hoc erat in votis" 
of Byron, and sherry cobler itself. It is made of pounded unripe 
grapes, clarified sugar, and water ; it is strained till it becomes 
of the palest straw-colored amber, and well iced. It is particu- 
larly well-made in Andalucia, and it is worth going there in the 
dog-days, if only to drink it — it cools a man's body and soul. At 
Madrid an agreeable drink is sold in the streets ; it is called Michi 
MicM, from the Valencian Mitj e Mifj, "half and half," and is as 
unlike the heavy wet mixture of London, as a coal-porter is to a 
pretty fair Valenciana. It is made of equal portions of barley- 
water and orgeat of Chufas, and is highly iced. The Spaniards, 
among other cooling fruits, eat their strawberries mixed with 
sugar and the juice of oranges, which will be found a more agree- 
able addition than the wine used by the French, or the cream of 
the English, — the one heats, and the other, whenever it is to be 
had, makes a man bilious in Spain. Spanish ices, helados, are 
apt to be too sAveet, nor is the sugar well refined ; the ices, when 
frozen very hard and in small forms, either representing fruits or 
shells, are called quesos, cheeses. 

Another favorite drink is a weak bottled beer mixed with iced 
lemonade. Spaniards, however, are no great drinkers of beer, 
notwithstanding that their ancestors drank more of it than wine, 
which was not then either so -plentiful or universal as at the pre- 
sent ; this substitute of grapeless countries passed from the Egyp- 
tians and Carthagenians into Spain, where it was excellent, and 
kept well. The vinous Roman soldiers derided the beer-drinking 
Iberians, just as the French did the English before the battle of 
Agincourt. " Can sodden water — barley-broth — decoct their cold 
blood to such valiant heat V Polybius sneers at the magnificence 
of a Spanish king, because his home was furnished with silver 
and gold vases full of beer, of barley-wine. The genuine Goths, 
as happens everywhere to this day, were great swillers of ale 
and beer, heady and stupifying mixtures,, according to Aristotle. 
Their Archbishop, St. Isidore, distinguished between celia ceria. 



ICED LEMONADE. 145 



the ale, and cerbisia, beer, whence the present word cerbeza is 
derived. Spanish beer, like many other Spanish matters, has 
now become small. Strong English beer is rare and dear; 
among one of the infinite ingenious absurdities of Spanish cus- 
toms' law, English beer in barrels used to be prohibited, as were 
English bottles if empty — but prohibited beer, in prohibited bot- 
tles, was admissible, on the principle that two fiscal negatives 
made an exchequer affirmative. 



8 



146 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

Spanish Wines — Spanish. Indifference — Wine-making — Vins du Pays — 
Local Wines — Benicarl6 — Valdepeiias. 

The wines of Spain deserve a chapter to themselves. Sherry 
indeed is not less popular among us than Murillo, in spite of the 
numbers of bad copies of the one, which are passed off for un- 
doubted originals, and butts of the other, which are sold neat as 
imported. The Spaniard himself is neither curious in port, nor 
particular in Madeira ; he prefers quantity to quality, and loves 
flavor much less than he hates trouble ; a cellar in a private 
house, of rare, fine, or foreign wines, is perhaps a greater curiosity 
than a library of ditto books ; an hidalgo with twenty names 
simply sends out before his frugal meal for a quart of wine to the 
nearest shop, as a small burgess does in the City for a pint of por- 
ter. Local in every thing, the Spaniard takes the goods that the 
gods provide him, just as they come to hand ; he drinks the wine 
that grows in the nearest vineyards, and if there are none, then 
regales himself with the water from the least distant spring. It 
is so in every thing ; he adds the smallest possible exertion of his 
own to the bounties of nature ; his object is to obtain the largest 
produce for the smallest labor ; he allows a life-conferring sun 
and a fertile soil to create for him the raw material, which he ex- 
ports, being perfectly contented that the foreigner should return 
it to him when recreated by art and industry ; thus his wool, ba- 
rilla, hides, and cork-bark, are imported by him back again in the 
form of cloth, glass, leather, and bungs. 

The most celebrated and perfect wines of the Peninsula are 
port and sherry, which owe their excellence to foreign, not to na- 
tive skill, the principal growers and makers being Europeans, and 
their system altogether un-Spanish ; nothing can be more rude, 
antique, and unscientific than the wine-making in those localities 



WINES OF SPAIN. 



where no stranger has ever settled. But Spain is a land bottled 
up for antiquarians, and it must be confessed that the national 
process is very picturesque and classical ; no Ariadne revel of 
Titian is more glittering or animated, no bas-relief more classical 
in which sacrifices are celebrated 

" To Bacchus, who first from out the pui'ple grape 
Crushed the sweet poison of misused wine." 

Often have we ridden through villages redolent with vinous aroma, 
and inundated with the blood of the berry, until the very mud was 
encarnadined ; what a busy scene !• Donkeys laden with panniers 
of the ripe fruit, damsels bending under heavy baskets, men with 
reddened legs and arms, joyous and jovial as satyrs, hurry jostling 
on to the rude and dirty vat, into which the fruit is thrown indis- 
criminately, the black-colored with the white ones, the ripe bunches 
with the sour, the sound berries with those decayed ; no pains are 
taken, no selection is made ; the filth and negligence are com- 
mensurate with this carelessness ; the husks are either trampled 
under naked feet or pressed out under a rude beam ; in both cases 
every refining operation is left to the fermentation of nature, for 
there is a divinity that shapes our ends, rough hew them how we 
may. 

The wines of Spain, under a latitude where a fine season is a 
certainty, might rival those of France, and still more those of the 
Rhine, where a good vintage is the exception, not the rule. Their 
varieties are infinite, since few districts, unless those that are very 
elevated, are without their local produce, the names, colors, and 
flavors of which are equally numerous and varied. The thirsty 
traveller, after a long day's ride under a burning sun, when seated 
quietly down to a smoking peppery dish, is enchanted with the 
cool draught of these vins du pays, which are brought fresh to him 
from the skins or amphora jars ; he longs to transport the appa- 
rently divine nectar to his own home, and wonders that " the trade" 
should have overlooked such delicious wine. Those who have 
tried the experiment will find a sad change for the worse come 
over the spirit of their dream, when the long-expected importation 
greets their papillatory organs in London. There the illusion is 
dispelled ; there to a cloyed, fastidious taste, to a judgment be- 



148 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

wildered and frittered away by variety of the best vintages, how 
flat, stale, and unprofitable does this much fancied beverage ap- 
pear ! The truth is, that its merit consists in the thirst and drink- 
ing vein of the traveller, rather than in the wine itself. Those, 
therefore, of our readers whose cellars are only stocked with 
choice Bordeaux, Xerez, and Champagne, may sustain with re- 
signation the absence of other sorts of Spanish grape juice. If an 
exception is to be made, let it be only in favor of Valdepenas and 
Manzanilla. 

The local wines may therefore be tossed off rapidly. The 
Navarrese drink their Peralta,*the Basques their Chacolet, which 
is a poor vin ordiaaire and inferior to our good cider. The 
Arragonese are supplied from the vineyards of Carinena ; the 
Catalans, from those of Sidges and Benicarlo ; the former is a 
rich sweet wine, with a peculiar aromatic flavor ; the latter is 
the well-known black strap, which is exported largely to Bor- 
deaux to enrich clarets for our vitiated taste, and as it is rich red, 
and full flavored, much comes to England to concoct what is 
denominated curious old port by those who sell it. The fiery 
and acrid brandy which is made from this Benicarlo is sent to 
the bay of Cadiz to the tune of 1000 butts a year to doctor up 
worse sherry. 

The central provinces of Spain consume but little of these ; 
Leon has a wine of its own which grows chiefly near Zamora 
and Toro, and it is much drunk at the neighboring and learned 
university of Salamanca, where, as it is strong and heady, it pro- 
motes prejudice, as port is said to do elsewhere. Madrid is sup- 
plied with wines grown at Tarancon, Arganda, and other places 
in its immediate vicinity, and those of the latter are frequently 
substituted for the celebrated Valdepenas of La Mancha, which 
was mother's milk to Sancho Panza and his two eminent progen- 
itors ; they differed, as their worthy descendant informed the 
Knight of the Wood, on the merits of a cask ; one of them just 
dipped his tongue into the wine, and affirmed that it had a taste 
of iron ; the other merely applied his nose to the bung-hole, and 
was positive that it smacked of leather ; in due time when the 
barrel was emptied, a key tied to a thong confirmed the degusta- 
tory acumen of these connoisseurs. 



THE BEST VINEYARDS. 149 

The red blood of this " valley of stones" issues with such 
abundance, that quantities of old wine are often thrown away, 
for the want of skins, jars, and casks into which to place the 
new. From the scarcity of fuel in these denuded plains, the 
prunings of the vine are sometimes as valuable as the grapes. 
Even at Valdepenas, with Madrid for its customer, the wine con- 
tinues to be made in an unscientific, careless manner. Before 
the French invasion, a Dutchman, named MuUer, had begun to 
improve the system, and better prices were obtained ; whereupon 
the lower classes in 1808, broke open his cellars, pillaged them, 
and nearly killed him because he made wine dearer. It is made 
of a Burgundy grape which has been transplanted and trans- 
ported from the stinted suns of fickle France to the certain and 
glorious summers of La Mancha. The genuine wine is rich, 
full-bodied, and high-colored. It will keep pretty well, and im- 
proves for four or five years, nay, longer. To be really enjoyed 
it must be drunk on the spot ; the curious in wine should go down 
into one of the cuevas or cave-cellars, and have a goblet of the 
ruby fluid drawn from the big-bellied jar. The wine, when taken 
to distant places, is almost always adulterated ; and at Madrid 
with a decoction of logwood, which makes it almost poisonous, 
acting upon the nerves and muscular system. 

The best vineyards and hodegas or cellars are those which did 
belong to Don Carlos, and those which do belong to the Marques 
de Santa Cruz. One anecdote will do the work of pages in set- 
ting forth the habitual indiiference of Spaniards, and the way 
things are managed for them. This very nobleman, who cer- 
tainly was one of the most distinguished among the grandees in 
rank and talent, was dining one day with a foreign ambassador 
at Madrid, who was a decided admirer of Valdepeiias, as all judi- 
cious men must be, and who took great pains to procure it quite 
pure by sending down trusty persons and sound casks. The 
Marques at the first glass exclaimed, " What capital wine ! where 
do you manage to buy it in Madrid ?" " I send for it," was the 
reply, " to your adminisirador at Valdepeiias, Anglice unjust ' 
steward, and shall be very happy to get you some." 

The wine is worth on the spot about bl. the pipe, but the 
land carriage is expensive, and it is apt, when conveyed in skins. 



150 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

to be tapped and watered by the muleteers, besides imbibing the 
disagi'eeable smack of the pitched pigskin. The only way to 
secure a pure, unadulterated, legitimate article, is to send up 
double quarter sherry casks ; the wine is then put into one, and 
that again is protected by an outer cask, which acts as a pre- 
ventive guard, against gimlets, straws, and other ingenious con- 
trivances for extracting the vinous contents, and for introducing 
an aqueous substitute. It must then be conveyed either on 
mules or in waggons to Cadiz and Santander. It is always as 
well to send for two casks, as accidents in this pays de Vimpr^vu 
constantly happen where wine and women are in the case. The 
importer will receive the most satisfactory certificates signed and 
sealed on paper, first duly stamped, in which the alcalde, the 
muleteer, the guardia, and all who have shared in the booty, 
will minutely describe and prove the accident, be it an upset, 
a breaking of casks, or what not. Very little pure Valde- 
peiias ever reaches England ; the numerous vendors' bold asser- 
tions to the contrary notwithstanding. As sherry is a subject 
of more general interest, it will be treated with somewhat more 
detail. 



SHERRY. 



CHAPTER XIV. 



Sherry Wines — The Sherry District — Origin of the Name — Varieties of 
Soil — Of Grapes — Pajarete — Rojas Clemente — Cultivation of Vines- 
Best Vineyards — The Vintage — Amontillado — The Capataz — The Bo- 
dega — Sherry Wine — Arrope and Madre Viqo — A Lecture on Sherry in 
the Cellar — at the Table — Price of Fine Sherry — Falsification of Sherry 
— Manzanilla — The Alpistera. 

Sherey, a wine which requires more explanation than many of 
its consumers imagine, is grown in a limited nook of the Penin- 
sula, on the south-western corner of sunny Andalucia, which oc- 
cupies a range of country of which the town of Xerez is the capi- 
tal and centre. The wine-producing districts extend over a space 
which is included — consult a map — within a boundary drawn 
from the towns of Puerto de S"- Maria, Rota, San Lucar, Tribu- 
jena, Lebrija, Arcos, and to the Puerto again. The finest vint- 
ages lie in the immediate vicinity of Xerez, which has given 
therefore its name to the general produce. The wine, however, 
becomes inferior in proportion as the vineyards get more distant 
from this central point. 

Although some authors — who, to show their learning, hunt for 
Greek etymologies in every word — have derived sherry from 
Sfj^og, dry, to have done so from the Persian Schiraz would 
scarcely have been more far-fetched. Sherris sack, the term used 
by Falstaff, no mean authority in this matter, is the precise seco 
de Xerez, the term by which the wine is known to this day in its 
own country ; the epithet seco, or dry — the seek of old English 
authors, and the sec of French ones — being used in contradistinc- 
tion to the sioeei malvoisies and muscadels, which are also made 
of the same grape. The wine, it is said, was first introduced 
into England about the time of Henry VII., whose close alliance 
with Ferdinand and Isabella was cemented by the marriage of 



152 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

his son with their daughter. It became still more popular amoag 
us under Elizabeth, when those who sailed under Essex sacked 
Cadiz in 1596, and brought home the fashion of good " sherris 
sack, from whence," as Sir John says, " comes valor." The 
visit to Spain of Charles I. contributed to keeping up among his 
countrymen this taste for the drinks of the Peninsula, which 
extended into the provinces, as we find Howell writing from 
York, in 1645, for " a barrell or two of oysters, which shall be 
well eaten," as he assures his friend, " with a cup of the best 
sherry, to which this town is altogether addicted." During the 
wars of the succession, and those fatal quarrels with England 
occasioned by the French alliance and family compact of Charles 
III., our consumption of sherries was much diminished, and the 
culture of the vine and the wine-making was neglected and de- 
teriorated. It was restored at the end of last century by the 
family of Gordon, whose houses at Xerez and the Puerto most de- 
servedly rank among the first in the country. The improved 
quality of the wines was their own recommendation ; but as 
fashion influences everything, their vogue was finally established 
by Lord Holland, who, on his return from Spain, introduced su- 
perlative sherry at his undeniable table. 

The quality of the wine depends on the grape and the soil, 
which has been examined and analyzed by competent chemists. 
Omitting minute and uninteresting particulars, the first class and 
the best is termed the Albariza ; this whitish soil is composed of 
clay mixed with carbonate of lune and silex. The second sort is 
called Barras. and consists of sandy quartz, mixed with lime and 
oxide of iron. The third is the Arenas, being, as the name indi- 
cates, little better than sand, and is by far the most widely ex- 
tended, especially about San Lucar, Rota, and the backof Arcos; 
it is the most productive, although the wine is generally coarse, 
thin, and ill-flavored, and seldom improves after the third year : 
it forms the substratum of those inferior sherries which are largely 
exported to the discredit of the real article. The fourth class of 
soil is limited in extent, and is the Bugeo, or dark-brown loamy 
sand which occurs on the sides of rivulets and hillocks. The 
wine grown on it is poor and weak ; yet all the inferior produces 
of these different districts are sold as sherry wines, to the great 



VINES OF ANDALUCIA. 



detriment of those really produced near Xerez itself, which do not 
amount to a fifth of the quantity exported. 

The varieties of the grape are far greater than those of the soil 
on which they are grown. Of more than a hundred different 
kinds, those called Listan and Palomina Blanca are the best. 
The increased demand for sherry, where the producing surface is 
limited, has led to the extirpation of many vines of an inferior 
kind, which have been replaced by new ones whose produce is of 
a larger and better quality. The Pedro Ximenez, or delicious 
sweet-tasted grape which is so celebrated, came originally from 
Madeira, and was planted on the Rhine, from whence about two 
centuries ago one Peter Simon brought it to Malaga, since when 
it has extended over the south of Spain. It is of this grape that 
the rich and luscious sweet wine called Pajarete is made ; a name 
which some have erroneously derived from Pajaros, the birds, 
who are wont to pick the ripest berries ; but it was so called from 
the wine having been originally only made at Paxarete, a small 
spot near Xerez : it is now prepared everywhere, and thus the 
grapes are dried in the sun until they almost become raisins, and 
the syrop quite inspissated, after that they are pressed, and a 
little fine old wine and brandy is added. This wine is extremely 
costly, as it is much used in the rearing and maturation of young 
sherry wines. 

There is an excellent account of all the vines of Andalucia by 
Rojas Clemen te. This able naturalist disgraced himself by being 
a base toady of the wretched minion Godoy, and by French parti- 
sanship, which is high treason to his own country. Accordingly, 
to please his masters, he " contrasts the frank genei'osity, the 
vivacity, and genial cordiality of the Xerezanos, with the sombre 
stupidity and ferocious egotism of the insolent people on the banks 
of the Thames," by whom he had just before been inost hospita- 
bly welcomed. This worthy gentleman wrote, however, within 
sight of Trafalgar, and while a certain untoward event was rank- 
ling in his and his estimable patron's bosom. 

The vines are cultivated with the greatest care, and demand 

unceasing attention, from the first planting to their final decay. 

They generally fruit about the fifth year, and continue in full 

and excellent bearing for about thirty-five years more, when the 

8* 



154 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

produce begins to diminish both in quantity and in quality. The 
best wines are produced from the slowest ripening grapes ; the 
vines are delicate, have a true bacchic hydrophobia, or antipathy 
to water — are easily affected and injured by bad smells and rank 
weeds. The vine-dresser enjoys little rest ; at one time the soil 
must be trenched and kept clean, then the vines must be pruned, 
and tied to the stakes, to which they are trained very low ; anon 
insects must be destroyed ; and at last the fruit has to be gath- 
ered and crushed. It is a life of constant care, labor, and ex- 
pense. 

The highest qualities of flavor depend on the grape and soil, 
and as the favored spots are limited, and the struggle and compe- 
tition for their acquisition great, the prices paid are always high, 
and occasionally extravagantly so ; the proprietors of vineyards 
are very numerous, and the surface is split and partitioned into 
infinite petty ownerships. Even the Pago de Macharnudo, the 
finest of all, the Clos de Vougeot, the Johannisberg of Xerez, is 
much subdivided ; it consists of 1200 aranzadas, one of which 
may be taken as equivalent to our acre, being, however, that 
quantity of land which can be ploughed with a pair of bullocks in 
a day — of these 1200, 460 belong to the great house of Pedro 
Domecq, and their mean produce may be taken at 1895 butts, of 
which some 350 only will run very fine. Among the next most 
renowned pagos, or wine districts, may be cited Carrascal, Los 
Tercios, Barbiana aJta y baja, Anina, San Julian, Mochiele, Car- 
raola, Cruz del Husillo, which lie in the immediate termino or 
boundary of Xerez; their produce always ensures high prices in 
the market. Many of these vineyards are fenced with canes, the 
ariindo donax, or with aloes, whose stiff-pointed leaves form pali- 
sadoes that would defy a regiment of dragoons, and are called by 
the natives the devil's toothpicks ; in addition, the capataz del 
campo, or country bailiff, is provided, like a keeper, with large 
and ferocious dogs, who would tear an intruder to pieces. The 
fruit when nearly mature is especially watched ; for, according 
to the proverb, it requires much vigilance to take care of ripe 
grapes and maidens — Ninas y vinas, son mal de guardar. 

When the period of the vintage arrives, the cares of the pro- 
prietors and the labors of the cultivators and makers increase. 



THE VINTAGE. 155 



The bunches are picked and spread out for some days on mat- 
tings ; the unripe grapes, which have less substance and spirit, 
are separated, and are exposed longer to the sun, by which they 
improve. If the berries be over-ripe, then the saccharine pre- 
vails, and there is a deficiency of tartaric acid. The selected 
grapes are sprinkled with lime, by which the watery and acetous 
particles are absorbed and corrected. A nice hand is requisite 
in this powdering, which by the way, is an ancient African cus- 
tom, in order to avoid the imputation of FalstafF, '• There is lime 
in this sack." The treading out the fruit is generally done by 
night, because it is then cooler, and in order to avoid as much as 
possible the plague of wasps, by whom the half-naked operators 
are liable to be stung. On the larger vineyards there is generally 
a jumble of buildings, which contain every requisite for making 
the wine, as well as cellars into which the must or pressed grape 
juice is left to pass the stages of fermentation, and where it re- 
mains until the following spring before it is removed from the lees. 
When the new wine is racked off, all the produce of the same 
vineyard and vintage is housed together, and called a partido or lot. 
The vintage, which is the all-absorbing, all engrossing moment 
of the year, occupies about a fortnight, and is earlier in the Rota 
districts than at Xerez, where it commences about the 20th of 
September ; into these brief moments the hearts, bodies, and souls 
of men are condensed ; even Venus, the queen of neighboring 
Cadiz, and who during the other three hundred and fifty-one days 
of the year, allies herself willingly to Bacchus, is now forgotten. 
Nobles and commoners, merchants and priests, talk of nothing 
but wine, which then and there monopolizes man, and is to Xerez 
what the water is at Grand Cairo, where the rising of the Nile is 
at once a pleasure and a profit. When the vintage is concluded, 
the custom-house officers take note in their respective districts of 
the quantity produced on each vineyard, to whom it is sold, and 
where it is taken to ; nor can it be resold or removed afterwards, 
without a permit and a charge of four per cent, ad valorem du>- 
It need not be said, that in a land where public officers.a but 
adequately paid, where official honesty and principle regularly 
unknown, a bribe is all-sufficient ; false returjQe, and transfer 
made, and every trick resorted to to facilita*' 



156 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

revenue into the pockets of the collectors, rather than into the 
Queen's treasury ; thus are defeated the vexations and extor- 
tions of commerce-hampering excise, to hate which seems to 
be a second nature in man all over the world, Commissioners 
excepted. In the first year a decided difference takes place in 
these new wines; some become hastos or coarse, others sour and 
others good ; those only which exhibit great delicacy, body, and 
flavor are called jinos or fine ; in a lot of one hundred butts, 
rarely more than from ten to fifteen can be calculated as deserving 
this epithet, and it is to the high price paid for these by the alma- 
Genistas or storers of wines, that the grower looks for remunera- 
tion ; the qualities of the v/ines usually produced in each particular 
termino or district do not vary much ; they have their regular 
character and prices among the trade, by whom they are per- 
fectly understood and exactly valued. 

These singular changes in the juice of grapes grown on the 
same vineyard, invariably take place, although no satisfactory 
reason has been yet assigned ; the chemical processes of nature 
have hitherto defied the investigations of man, and in nothing more 
than in the elaboration of that lusus naturae vel Bacchi, that va- 
riety of flavor which goes by the name of amontillado ; this has 
been given to it from its resemblance in dryness and quality to 
the wines of Montilla, near Cordova : the latter, be it observed, 
are scarcely known in England at all. nor indeed in Spain, ex- 
cept in their own immediate neighborhood, where they supply the 
local consumption. This amontillado, vvhen the genuine pro- 
duction of nature, is very valuable, as it is used in correcting 
young Sherry wines, which are running over sweet ; it is very 
scarce, since out of a hundred butts of vino foio, not more than 
five will possess its properties. Much of the wine which is sold 
in London as pure amontillado, is a fictitious preparation, and 
made up for the British market. 

^xA.11 sherries are a matured mixture of grape juice ; champagne 
a pais a manufactured wine ; nor does it much matter, provided 
ing and^.and wholesome beverage be produced. In all the lead- 
grown in the^'table houses, the wine is prepared from grapes 
in explaining the%t, nor is there the slightest mystery made 
"^ial processes which are adopted j the rear. 



THE CAPATAZ. 157 



ing, educating, and finishing as it were, of these wines, is a work 
of many years, and is generally intrusted to the Capataz, the 
chief butler; or head man, who very often becomes the real mas- 
ter; this important personage is seldom raised in Andalucia, or 
in any wine-growing districts of Spain ; he generally is by birth 
an Austrian, or a native of the mountains contiguous to Santan- 
der, from whence the chandlers and grocers, hence called Los 
Montaneses, are supplied throughout the Peninsula. These High- 
landers are celebrated for the length of their pedigrees, and the 
tasting properties of their tongues; we have more than once in 
Estremadura and Leon fallen in with flights of these ragged gen- 
try, wending, Scotch-like, to* the south in search of fortune; few 
had shoes or shirts, yet almost every one carried his family parch- 
ment. in a tin case, wherein his descent from Tubal — respectable, 
although doubtful — was proven to be as evident as the sun is at 
noon day. 

These gentlemen of good birth and better taste seldom smoke, 
as the narcotic stupifying weed deadens papillatory delicacy. 
Now as few wine-masters in Spain would give up the cigar to 
gain millions, the Capataz soon becomes the sole possessor of the 
secrets of the cellar ; and as no merchants possess vineyards of 
their own sufficient to supply their demand, the purchases of new 
wines must be made by this confidential servant, who is thus ena- 
bled to cheat both the grower and his own employer, since he will 
only buy of those who give him the largest commission. Many 
contrive by these long and faithful services to amass great wealth ; 
thus Juan Sanchez, the Capataz of the late Petro Domecq, died 
recently worth £300,000. Towards his latter end, having been 
visited by his confessor and some qualms of conscience, he be- 
queathed his fortune to pious and charitable uses, but the bulk 
was forthwith secured by his attorneys and priests, whose charity 
began at home. 

As the chancellor is the keeper of the Queen's conscience, so 
the Capataz is the keeper of the hodega or the wine-store, which 
is very peculiar, and the grand lion of Xerez. The rich and 
populous town, when seen from afar, rising in i's vine-clad knoll, 
is characterized by these huge erections, that look like the pent- 
houses under which men-of-war are built at Chatham. These 



158 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

temples of Bacchus resemble cathedrals in size and loftiness, and 
their divisions, like Spanish chapels, bear the names of the saints 
to whom they are dedicated, and few tutelar deities have more 
numerous or more devout worshippers ; but Romanism mixes 
itself up in everything of Spain, and fixes its mark alike on salt- 
pans and mine-shafts, as on boats and bodegas. These huge re- 
positories are all above ground, and are the antithesis of our 
under-ground cellars. The wines of Xerez are thus found to 
ripen both better and quicker, as one year in a hodega inspires 
them with more life than do ten years of burial. As these wines 
are more capricious in the developement of their character than 
young ladies at a boarding-school, the greatest care is taken in 
the selection of eligible and healthy situations for their education ; 
the neigliborhood of all offensive drains or effluvia is carefully 
avoided, since these nuisances are sure to affect the delicately 
organized fluids, although they fail to damage the noses of those 
to whose charge they are committed ; and strange to say, in this 
land of contradictions, Cologne itself is scarcely more renowned 
for its twenty and odd bad smells ascertained by Coleridge, than 
is this same tortuous, dirty, and old fashioned Xerez. Here, as 
in the Rhenish city, all the sweets are bottled up for exportation, 
all the stinks kept for home consumption. The new bodegas are 
consequently erected in the neAver portions of the town, in dry 
and open places ; connected with them are offices and workshops, 
in which everything bearing upon the wine trade is manufactured, 
even to the barrels that are made of American oak staves. The 
interior of the hodega is kept deliciously cool ; the glare outside 
is carefully excluded, while a free circulation of air is admitted ; 
an even temperature is very essential, and one at an average of 
60 degrees is the best of all. There are more than a thousand 
bodegas registered at the custom house for the Xerez district ; 
the largest only belong to the first-rate firms, and mostly to Eu- 
ropeans, that is, to English and Frenchmen. A heavy capital ia 
required, much patience and forethought, qualities which do not 
grow on these or on any hills of Spain. This necessity will be 
better understood when it is said, that some of these stores contain 
from one to four thousand butts, and that few really fine sherries 
are sent out of them u I ten or fAehe years old. Supposing, 



WINE-MIXING. 



therefore, that each butt averages in value only £25, it is evident 
hovi' much time and investment of wealth is necessary. 

Sherry wine, when mature and perfect, is made up from many 
butts. The " entire," indeed, is the result of Xerez grapes, but 
of many different ages, vintages, and varieties of flavor. The 
contents of one barrel serve to correct another until the pro- 
posed standard aggregate is produced ; and to such a certainty 
has this uniform admixture been reduced, that houses are enabled 
to supply for any number of years exactly that particular color, 
flavor, body, &;c., which particular customers demand. This 
wine improves very much with age, gets softer and more aromatic, 
and gains both body and aroma, in which its young wines are 
deficient. Indeed, so great is the change in all respects, that one 
scarcely can believe them ever to have been the same : the baby 
differs not more from the man, nor the oak from the acorn. 

That Capataz has attained the object of his fondest wishes, 
who has observed in his compositions the poetical principles of 
Horace, the cciUida junciura, the otiine tulit punctum qui miscuit 
utile dulci ; this happy and skilful junction of the sweet and 
solid, should unite fulness of body, an oily, nutty flavor and 
bouquet, dryness, absence from acidity, strength, durability, and 
spirit uosity. Very little brandy is necessary, as the vivifying 
power of the unstinted sun of Andalucia imparts sufficient 
alcohol, which ranges from 20 to 23 per cent, in fine sherries, 
and only reaches about 12 in clarets and champagnes. Fine pure 
sherry is of a rich brown color, but in order to flatter the conven- 
ventional tastes of some English, "pale old sherry" must be had, 
and color is chemically discharged at the expense of delicate 
aroma. Another absurd deference to British prejudice, is the send- 
ing sherries to the East Indies, because such a trip is found some- 
times to benefit the wines of Madeira. This is not only expen- 
sive but positively injurious to the juice of Xerez, as the wine 
returns diminished in quantity, turbid, sharp, and deteriorated in 
flavor, while from the constant fermentation it becomes thinner 
in body and more spirituous. The real secret of procuring good 
dierry is to pay the best price for ic at the best house, and then 
to keep the purchase for many years in a good cellar before it is 
drunk. 



160 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

To return to the Capataz. This head master passes this life 
of probation in tasting. He goes the regular round of his butts, 
ascertaining the qualities, merits, and demerits of each pupil, 
which he notes by certain marks or hieroglyphics. He corrects 
faults as he goes along, making a memorandum also of the date 
and remedy applied, and thus at his next visit he is enabled to 
report good progress, or lament the contrary. The new wines, 
after the fermentation is past, are commonly enriched with an 
arrope, or sort of syrup, which is found very much to encourage 
them. There are extensive manufactories of this cordial at San 
Lucar, and wherever the arenas, or sandy soil, prevails. The 
must, or new grape juice, before fermentation has commenced, 
is boiled slowly down to the fifth of its bulk. It must simmer, 
and requires great care in the skimming and not being burnt. 
Of this, when dissolved, the vino de color, the madre vino, or 
mother wine, is made, by which the younger ones are nourished 
as by mother's milk. When old, this balsamic ingredient be- 
comes strong, perfumed as an essence, and very precious, and is 
worth from three to five hundred guineas a butt ; indeed it 
scarcely ever will be sold at all. All the principal bodegas have 
certain huge and time-honored casks which contain this divine 
ichor, which i'nspires ordinary wines with generous and heroic 
virtues ; hence possibly their dedication of their tuns not to saints 
and saintesses, but to Wellingtons and Nelsons. It is from these 
reservoirs that distinguished visitors are allowed just a sip. Such 
a compliment was paid to Ferdinand VII. by Pedro Domecq, and 
the cask to this day bears the royal name of its assayer. What- 
ever quantity is taken out of one of these for the benefit of 
younger wines, is replaced by a similar qnantity drawn from the 
next oldest cask in the cellar. 

After a year or two trial of the new wines, it is ascertained 
how they will eventually turn out ; if they go wrong, they are 
expelled from the seminary, and shipped off" to the leathern-tongued 
consumers of Hamburgh or Quebec, at about 15s. per butt. All 
the various forms, stages, and steps of education are readily ex- 
plained in the great establishments, among which the first are 
those of Domecq and John David Gordon, and nothing can exceed 
the cordial hospitality of these princely merchants ; whoever 



TASTING WINE. 



comes provided with a letter of introduction is carried off bodily, 
bags, baggage, and all, to their houses, which, considering the 
iniquity of Xerezan inns, is a satisfactory move. Then and 
there the guest is initiated into the secrets of trade, and is handed 
over to the Capataz, who delivers an explanatory lecture on vi- 
nology, which is illustrated, like those of Faraday, by experi- 
ments : tasting sherry at Xerez has, as Senor Clemente would 
say, very little in common with the commonplace customs of the 
London Docks. Here the swarthy professor, dressed somewhat 
like Figaro in the Barber of Seville, is followed by sundry jack- 
eted and sandalled Ganymedes, who bear glasses on waiters ; the 
lecturer, is armed with a long stick, to the end of which is tied a 
bit of hollow cane, which he dips into each butt ; the subject is 
begun at the beginning, and each step in advance is explained to 
the listening party with the'gravity of a judicious foreman of a 
jury : the sample is handed round and tasted by all, who, if they 
are wise will follow the example of their leader (on whom wine 
has no more effect than on a glass), by never swallowing the sips, 
but only permitting the tongue to agitate it in the mouth, until the 
exact flavor is mastered ; every cask is tried, from the young 
wine to the middle-aged, from the mature to the golden ancient. 
Those who are not stupefied by the fumes, cannot fail to come out 
vastly edified. The student should hold hard during the first tri- 
als, for the best wine is reserved until the last. He ascends, if 
he does not tumble off, a vinous ladder of excellence. It would 
be better to reverse the order of the course, and commence with 
tlie finest sorts while the palate is fresh and the judgment un- 
clouded. The thirster after knowledge must not drink too deeply 
now, but remember the second ordeal to which he will afterwards 
be exposed at the hospitable table of the proprietor, whose joy 
and pride is to produce fine wine and plenty of it, when his friends 
meet around his mahogany. 

What a grateful offering is then made to the jovial god, by 
whom the merchant lives, and by whom the deity is now set from 
his glassy prison free ! What a drawing of popping corks, half 
consumed by time ! — what a brushing away of venerable cob- 
webs from flasks binned apart while George the Third was king ! 
The delight of the worthy Amphitryon on producing a fresh bot- 



162 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

tie, exceeds that of a prolific motlier when she blesses her bus- 
band with a new baby. He handles the darling decanter, as if 
he dearly loved the contents, which indeed are of his own ma- 
king ; how the clean glasses are held up to the light to see the 
bright transparent liquid sparkle and phosphoresce within ; how 
the intelligent nose is passed slowly over the mantling surface, 
redolent with fragrancy ; how the climax of rapture is reached 
when the godlike nectar is raised to the blushing lips ! 

The wine suffices in itself for sensual gratification and for in- 
tellectual conversation : all the guests have an opinion ; what 
gentleman, indeed, cannot judge on a horse or a bottle? When 
differences arise, as they will in mattei's of taste, and where bot- 
tles circulate freely, the master-host decides — 

" Tells all the names, lays down the law. 
Clue 5a est bon ; ah, gotitez 5a." 

There is to him a combination of pleasure and profit in these 
genial banquets, these noctes coenseque Deum. Many a good 
connection is thus formed, when an English gentleman, who now, 
perhaps for the first time, tastes pure and genuine sherry. A 
good dinner naturally promotes good humor with mankind in 
general, and with the donor in particular. A given quantity of 
the present god opens both heart and purse-strings, until the 
tongue on which the magic flavor lingers, murmurs gratefully 
out, " Send me a butt of amontillado pasado, and another of seco 
reanejo, and draw for the cash at sight." 

An important point will now arise, what is the price ? That 
ever is the question and the rub. Pure genuine sherry, from ten 
to twelve years old, is worth from 50 to 80 guineas per butt, in 
the bodega, and when freight, insurance, duty, and charges are 
added, will stand the importer from 100 to 130 guineas in his 
cellar. A butt will run from 108 to 112 gallons, and the duty is 
5,?. 6fZ. per gallon. Such a butt will bottle about 52 dozen. 
The reader will now appreciate the bargains of those " pale" 
and " golden sherries" advertised in the English newspapers at 
36s. the dozen, bottles included. They are maris expers, although 
much indebted to French brandy, Sicilian Marsala, Cape wine, 
Devonshire cider, and Thames water. 



ADULTERATION OF WINES. 



The growth of wine amounts to some 400,000 or 500,000 
arrobas annually. The arroba is a Moorish name, and a dry- 
measure, although used for liquids ; it contains a quarter of a 
hundredweight ; 30 arrobas go to a hoia, or butt, of which from 
8000 to 10,000 of really fine are annually exported ; but the 
quantities of so-called sherries, " neat as imported," in the manu- 
facture of which San Lucar is fully occupied, is prodigious, and 
is increasing every year. To give an idea of the extent of the 
growing traffic, in 1842 25,096 butts were exported from these 
districts, and 29,313 in 1843 ; while in 1845 there were ex- 
ported 18,135 butts from Xerez alone, and 14,037 from the 
Puerto," making the enormous aggregate of 32,172 butts. Now 
as the vineyards remain precisely the same, probably some por- 
tion of these additional barrels may not be quite the genuine pro- 
duce of the Xerez grape : in truth, the ruin of sherry wines has 
commenced, from the numbers of second-rate houses that have 
sprung up, which look lo quantity, not quality. Many thousand 
butts of bad Niebla wine are thus palmed off on the enlightened 
British public after being well brandied and doctored ; thus a 
conventional notion of sherry is formed, to the ruin of the real 
thing ; for even respectable houses are forced to fabricate their 
wines so as to suit the depraved taste of their consumers, as is 
done with pure clarets at Bordeaux, which are charged with Her- 
mitages and Benicarlo. Thus delicate idiosyncratic flavor is lost, 
while headache and dyspepsia are imported ; but there is a 
fashion in wines as in physicians. Formerly Madeira was the 
vinous panacea, until the increased demand induced disreputable 
traders to deteriorate the article, which in the reaction became 
dishonored. Then sherry was resorted lo as a more honest and 
wholesome beverage. Now its period of decline is hastening 
from the same causes, aud the average produce is becoming in- 
ferior, to end in disrepute, and possibly in a return to the wines 
of Madeira, whose makers have learnt a lesson in the stern school 
of adversity. 

Be that as it may, the people at large of Spain are scarcely 
acquainted with the taste of sherry wine, beyond the immediate 
vicinity in which it is made ; and more of it is swallowed at 
Gibraltar at the messes, than in either Madrid, Toledo, or Sala- 



164 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

manca. Sherry is a foreign wine, and made and drunk by- 
foreigners ; nor do the generality of Spaniards like its strong fla- 
vor, and still less its high price, although some now affect its 
use, because, from its great vogue in England, it argues civiliza- 
tion to adopt it. This use obtains only in the capital and richer 
seaports ; thus at inland Granada, not 150 miles from Xerez, 
sherry would hardly be to be had, were it not for the demand 
created by our travelling countrymen, and even then it is sold 
per bottle, and as a liqueur. At Seville, which is quite close to 
Xerez, in the best houses, one glass only is handed round, just as 
only one glass of Greek wine was in the house of the father of 
even Lucullus among the ancient Romans, or as among the 
modern ones is still done with Malaga or Vino de Cypro ; this 
single glass is drunk as a chasse, and being considered to aid 
digestion, is called the goipe medico, the coup de medecin ; it is 
equivalent, in that hot country, to the thimbleful of Curagoa or 
Cognac, by which coffee is wound up in colder England and 
France. 

In Andalucia it was no less easy for the Moor to encourage 
the use of water as a beverage, than to prohibit that of wine, 
which, if endued with strength, which sherry is, must destroy 
health when taken largely and habitually, as is occasionally found 
out at Gibraltar. Hence the natives of Xerez themselves infi- 
nitely prefer a light wine called Manzanilla, which is made near 
San Lucar, and is at once much weaker and cheaper than sherry. 
The grape from which it is produced grows on a poor and sandy 
soil. The vintage is very early, as the fruit is gathered before it 
is quite ripe. The wine is of a delicate pale straw color, and is 
extremely wholesome ; it strengthens the stomach, without heat- 
ing or inebriating, like sherry. All classes are passionately fond 
of it, since the want of alcohol enables them to drink more of it 
than of stronger beverages, while the dry quality acts as a tonic 
during the relaxing heats. It may be compared to the ancient 
Lesbian, which Horace quaffed so plentifully in the cool shade, 
and then described as never doing harm. The men employed in 
the sherry wine vaults, and who have therefore that drink at their 
command, seldom touch it, but invariably, when their work is 



THE ALPISTERA. 165 



done, go to the neighboring shop to refresh themselves with a 
glass of " innocent" Manzanilla. Among their betters, clubs are 
formed solely to drink it, and with iced water and a cigar it trans- 
ports the consumer into a Moslem's dream of paradise. It tastes 
better from the cask than out of the bottle, and improves as the 
cask gets low. 

The origin of the name has been disputed ; some who prefer 
sound to sense derive it from Manzana, an apple, which had it 
been cider might have passed ; others connect it with the distant 
town of Manzanilla on the opposite side of the river, where it is 
neither made nor drunk. The real etymology is to be found in 
its sLriking resemblance to the bitter flavor of the flowers of camo- 
mile {manzanilla), which are used by our doctors to make a medi- 
cinal tea, and by those of Spain for fomentations. This flavor in 
the wine is so marked as to be at first quite disagreeable to 
strangers. If its eulogistic consumers are to be believed, the 
wine surpasses the tea in hygseian qualities ; none, say they, who 
drink it are ever troubled with gravel, stone, or gout. Certainly, 
it is eminently free from acidity. The very best Manzanilla is 
to be had in London, of Messrs. Gorman, No. 16, Mark Lane. 
Since " Drink it, ye dyspeptics," was enjoined last year in the 
' Handbook,' the importation of this wme to England, which pre- 
viously did not exceed ten butts, has in twelve short months over- 
passed two hundred ; a compliment delicate as it is practical, 
which is acknowledged by the author — a drinker thereof — with 
most profound gratitude. 

By the way, the real thing to eat with Manzanilla is the alpis- 
tera. Make it thus : — To one pound of fine flour (mind that it is 
dry) add half a pound of double-refined, well-sifted, pounded 
white sugar, the yolks and whites of four very fresh eggs, well 
beaten together ; work the mixture up into a paste ; roll it out 
very thin ; divide it into squares about half the size of this page ; 
cut it into strips, so that the paste should look like a hand with 
fingers ; then dislocate the strips, and dip them in hot melted fine 
lard, until of a delicate pale brown ; the more the strips are 
curled up and twisted the better ; the aipzstera should look like 
bunches of ribbons ; powder them over with fine white sugar. 



166 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

They are then as pretty as nice. It is not easy to make them 
well ; but the gods grant no excellence to mortals without much 
labor and thought. So Venus the goddess of grace was allied to 
hard-working Vulcan, who toiled and pondered at his fire, as 
every cook who has an aspiring soul has ever done. 



SPANISH INNS. 167 



CHAPTER XV. 

Spanish Inns : Why so Indifferent — The Fonda — Modern Improvements — 
The Posada — Spanish Innkeepers — The Venta : Arrival in it — Arrange- 
ment — Garlic — Dinner — Evening — Night — Bill — Identity with the Inns 
of the Ancients. 

Having thus, and we hope satisfactorily, discussed the eatables 
and drinkables of Spain, attention must naturally be next directed 
to those houses on the roads and in the towns, where these com- 
forts to the hungry and weary public are to be had, or are not to 
be had, as sometimes will happen in this land of " the unex- 
pected ;" the Peninsular inns, with few exceptions, have long 
been divided into the bad, the worse, and the worst ; and as the 
latter are still the most numerous and national, as well as the 
worst, they will be gone into the last. In few countries will the 
rambler agree oftener with dear Dr. Johnson's speech to his 
squire Boswell, '' Sir, there is nothing which has been contrived 
by man, by which so much happiness is produced, as by a good 
tavern." Spain offers many negative arguments of the truth 
of our great moralist and eater's reflection ; the inns in general 
are fuller of entertainment for the mind than the body, and even 
when the newest, and the best in the country, are indifferent .if 
compared to those which Englishmen are accustomed to at home, 
and have created on those high roads of the Continent, which 
they most frequent. Here few gentlemen will say with Falstaff, 
" Shall I not take mine ease in mine inn ?" Badness of roads 
and discomforts of ventas cannot well escape the notice of tho-se 
who travel on horseback and slowly, since they must dwell on 
and in them ; whereas a rail whisks the passenger past such 
nuisances, with comet-like rapidity, and all things that are soon 
out of sight are quicker out of mind ; nevertheless, let no aspi- 
ring writer be deterred from quitting the highways for the by- 
ways of the Peninsula. " There is. Sir," as Johnson again said 



168 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

to Boswell, " a good deal of Spain that has not been perambu- 
lated. I would have you go thither ; a man of inferior talents to 
yours, may furnish us with useful observations on that country." 
Why the public accommodations should be second-rate is soon 
explained. Natuie and the natives have long combined to iso- 
late still more their Peninsula, which already is moated round 
by the unsocial sea, and is barricadocd by almost impassable 
mountains. The Inquisition all but reduced Spanish man to the 
condition of a monk in a wall-enclosed convent, by standing 
sentinel, and keeping watch and ward against the foreigner and 
his perilous novelties ;* Spain thus unvisited and unvisiting, 
became arranged for Spaniards only, and has scarcely required • 
conveniences which are more suited to the curious wants 
of other Europeans and strangers who here are neither liked, 
wished for, nor even thought of, by natives who seldom travel ex- 
cept on compulsion and never for amusement ; why indeed should 
they ? since Spain is paradise, and each man's own parish in his 
eyes is the central spot of its glory. When the noble and rich 
visited the provinces, they were lodged in their own or in their 
friends' houses, just as the clergy and monks were received into 
convents. The great bulk of the Peninsular family, not being 
overburdened with cash or fastidiousness, have long been and are 
inured to infinite inconveniences and negations ; they live at 
home in an abundance of privations, and expect when abroad to 
be worse off; and they well know that comfort never lodges at a 
Spanish inn ; as in the East, they cannot conceive that any trav- 

* The very word Novelty has become in common parlance synonymous 
with danger, change, by the fear of which all Spaniards are perplexed ; as in 
religion it is a heresy. Bitter experience has taught all classes that every 
change, every promise of a new era of blessing and prosperity has ended in 
a failure, and that matters have got worse : hence they not only bear the 
evils to which they are accustomed, rather than try a speculative ameliora 
tion, but actually prefer a bad state of things, of which they know the worst, 
to the possibility of an untried good. Mas vale el mal coaocido^ que el bien 
por conocer. '■ How is my lady the wife of your grace ?" says a Spanish 
gentleman to his friend. " Como estd mi Seiiora la esposa de TJstedV'' "She 
goes on without novelty" — " Sigue sin Novedad^' is the reply, if the fair one 
be much the same. " Vaya listed con Dios, y que no hay a NovedadP^ " Go 
with God, your grace ! and may nothing new happen," says another, on 
starting his friend off on a journey. 



CONTINENTAL INNS. 169 

elling should be unattended by hardships, which they endure with 
Oriental resignation, as cosas de Espana, or things of Spain which 
have always been so, and for which there is no remedy but patient 
resignation ; the bliss of ignorance, and the not knowing of any- 
thing better, is everywhere the grand secret of absence of dis- 
content ; while to those whose every-day life is a feast, every 
thing that does not come up to their conventional ideas becomes 
a failure, but to those whose daily bread is dry and scanty, whose 
drink is water, every thing beyond prison-fare appears to be 
luxury. 

In Spain there has been little demand for those accommodations 
which have been introduced on the continent by our nomade 
countrymen, who carry their tea, towels, carpets, comforts- and 
civilization with them ; to travel at all for mere pleasure is quite 
a modern invention, and being an expensive affair, is the most in- 
dulged in by the English, because they can best afford it, but as 
Spain lies out of their hackneyed routes, the inns still retain much 
the same state of primitive dirt and discomfort, which most of 
those on the continent presented, until repolished by our hints and 
guineas. 

In the Peninsula, where intellect does not post in a Britannic 
britzcka and four, the inns, and especially those of the country and 
inferior order, continue much as they were in the time of the 
Romans, and probably long before them ; nay those in the very 
vicinity of Madrid, " the only court on earth," are as classically 
wretched, as the hostelry at Aricia, near the Eternal City, was 
in the days of Horace. The Spanish inns, indeed, on the by- 
roads and remoter districts, are such as render it almost unad- 
visable for any English lady to venture to face them, unless pre- 
determined to go through roughing-it, in a way of which none 
who have only travelled in England can form the remotest idea ; 
at the same time they may be and have been endured by even 
the sick and delicate. To youth, and to all men in enjoyment of 
good health, temper, patience, and the blessing of foresight, neither 
a dinner nor a bed will ever be wanting, to both of which hunger 
and fatigue will give a zest beyond the reach of art ; and fortu- 
nately for travellers, all the Continent over, and particularly in 
Spain, bread and salt, as in the days of Horace, will be found to 

PART II. 9 



170 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

appease the wayfarer's barking stomach, nor will he who after 
that sleeps soundly be bitten by fleas, " quien duerme Men, no le 
pican las pulgas.'' The pleasures of travelling in this wild land 
are cheaply purchased by these trifling inconveniences, which 
may always be much lessened by provision in brain and basket ; 
the expeditions teem with incident, adventure, and novelty ; every 
day and evening present a comedy of real life, and offer means of 
obtaining insight into human nature, and form in after-life a per- 
petual fund of interesting I'ecollections : all that was charming 
will be then remembered, and the disagreeable, if not forgotten, 
will be disarmed of its sting, nay, even as having been in a battle, 
will become a pleasant thing to recollect and to talk, may be 
twaddle, about. Let not the traveller expect to find too much ; 
if he i-eckons on finding nothing he will seldom be disappointed ; 
so let him not look for five feet in a cat, " no busces cinco pies al 
gato." Spain, as the East, is not to be enjoyed by the over- 
fastidious in the fleshly comforts ; there, those who over analyze, 
who peep too much behind the culinary or domestic curtains, 
must not expect to pass a tranquil existence. 

First and foremost among these refuges for the destitute comes 
\\\efonda, the hotel. This, as the name implies, is a foreign 
thmg, and was imported from Venice, which in its time was the 
Paris of Europe, the leader of sensual civilization, and the sink 
of every lie and iniquity. Its fondacco, in the same manner, 
served as a model for the Turkish fondack. Thofonda is only 
to be found in the largest towns and principal seaports, where 
the presence of foreigners creates a demand and supports the 
establishment. To it frequently is attached a cafe, or " botil- 
lerid," a bottlery and a place for the sale of liqueurs, with a 
" neveria,'' a snowery where ices and cakes are supplied. Men 
only, not horses, are taken in at afonda ; but there is generally 
a keeper of a stable or of a minor inn in the vicinity, to which 
the traveller's animals are consigned. The fonda is tolerably 
furnished in reference to the common articles with which the 
sober indulgent natives are contented : the traveller in his com- 
parisons must never forget that Spain is not England, which too 
few ever can get out of their heads. Spain is Spain, a truism 
which cannot be too often repeated ; and in its being Spain consists 



THE FONDA. 171 



its originality, its raciness, its novelty, its idiosyncrasy, its best 
charm and interest, although the natives do not know it, and are 
every day, by a foolish aping of European civilization, paring 
away attractions, and getting commonplace, unlike themselves, 
and still more unlike their Gotho-Moro and most picturesque 
fathers and mothers. Monks, as we said in our preface, are gone, 
mantillas are going, the shadow of cotton versus corn has already 
darkened the sunny city of Figaro, and the end of all Spanish 
things is coming. Ay ! de mi Espana ! 

Thus in Spain, and especially in the hotter provinces, it is heat 
and not cold which is the enemy : what we call furniture — car- 
pets, rugs, curtains, and so forth — would be a positive nuisance, 
would keep out the cool, and harbor plagues of vermin beyond 
endurance. The walls of the apartments are frequently, though 
simply, whitewashed : the uneven brick floors are covered in 
winter with a matting made of the " esparto,''^ rush, and called 
an " estera" as was done in our king's palaces in the days of 
Elizabeth : a low iron or wooden truckle bedstead, with coarse 
but clean sheets and clothes, a few hard chairs, perhaps a stiff- 
backed, most uncomfortable sofa, and a rickety table or so, com- 
plete the scanty inventory. The charges are moderate ; about 
two dollars, or 8s. 6d!., per head a-day, includes lodging, break- 
fast, dinner, and supper. Servants, if Spanish, are usually 
charged the half; English servants, whom no wise person would 
take on the Continent, are nowhere more useless, or greater in- 
cumbrances, than in this hungry, thirsty, tealess, beerless, beef- 
less land ; they give more trouble, require more food and atten- 
tion, and are ten times more discontented than their masters, who 
have poetry in their souls ; an sesthetie love of travel, for its own 
sake, more than counterbalances with them the want of material 
gross comforts, about which their pudding headed four-full-meals- 
a-day attendants are only thinking. Charges are higher at Mad- 
rid, and Barcelona, a great commercial city, where the hotels 
are appointed more European-like, in accommodation and prices. 
Those who remain any time in a large town bargain with the 
innkeeper, or go into a boarding-house, " casa de pupilos," or 
"de huespedes," where they have the best opportunity of learn- 
ing the Spanish language, and of obtaining an idea of national 



172 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

manners and habits. This system is very common. The houses 
may be known externally by a white paper ticket attached to the 
extremity of one of the windows or balconies. This position must 
be noted ; for if the paper be placed in the middle of the balcony, 
the signal means only that lodgings are here to be let. Their 
charges are very reasonable. 

Since the death of Ferdinand VII. marvellous improvements 
have taken place in some fondas. In the changes and chances 
of the multitudinous revolutions, all parties ruled in their rotation, 
and then either killed or banished their opponents. Thus royal- 
ists, liberals, patriots, moderates, &c., each in their turn, have 
been expatriated ; and as the wheel of fortune and politics went 
round, many have turned to their beloved Spain from bitter 
exile in France and England. These travellers, in many cases, 
were sent abroad for the public good, since they were thus ena- 
bled to discover that some things are better managed on the other 
side of the water and Pyrenees. Then and there suspicion 
crossed their minds, although they seldom will admit it to a for- 
eigner, that Spain was not altogether the richest, wisest, strongest, 
and first of nations, but that she might take a hint or two in a 
few trifles, among which perhaps the accommodations for man 
and beast might be included. The ingress, again, of foreigners 
by the facilities oifered to travellers by the increased novelties 
of steamers, mails, and diligence necessarily called for more 
waiters and inns. Every day, therefore, the fermentation occa- 
sioned by the foreign leaven is going on ; and if the national 
musto, or grape-juice, be not over-drugged with French brandy, 
something decent in smell and taste may yet be produced. 

In the seaports and large towns on the Madrid roads the twi- 
light of cafe and cuisine civilization is breaking from La belle 
France. Monastic darkness is dispelled, and the age of convents 
is giving way to that of kitchens, while the large spaces and am- 
ple accommodations of the suppressed monasteries suggest an 
easy transition into " first-rate establishments," in which the 
occupants will probably pay more and pray less. News, indeed, 
have just arrived from Malaga, that certain ultra-civilized hotels 
are actually rising, to be defrayed by companies and engineered 
by English, who seern to be as essential in regulating these nov- 



THE POSADA. 173 



elties on the Continent as in the matters of railroads and steam- 
boats. Rooms are to be papered, brick floors to be exchanged 
for boards, carpets to be laid down, fireplaces to be made, and 
bells are to be hung, incredible as it may appear to all who re- 
member Spain as it was. They will ring the knell of nationality ; 
and we shall be much mistaken if the grim old Cid, when the 
first one is pulled at Burgos, does not answer it himself by knock- 
ing the innovator down. Nay, more, for wonders never cease ; 
vague rumors are abroad that secret and solitary closets are 
contemplated, in which, by some magical mechanism, sudden 
waters are to gush forth ; but this report, like others via Madrid 
and Paris telegraph requires confirmation. Assuredly, the spirit 
of the Holy Inquisition, which still hovers over orthodox Spain, 
will long ward off these English heresies, which are rejected as 
too bad even by free-thinking France. 

The genuine Spanish town inn is called the posada, as being 
meant to mean, a house of repose after the pains of travel. 
Strictly speaking, the keeper is only bound to provide lodging, 
salt, and the power of cooking whatever the traveller brings 
with him or can procure out of doors ; and in this it differs from 
Xhefonda, in which meats and drinks are furnished. The posada 
ought only to be compared to its type, the khaii of the East, and 
never to the inn of Europe. If foreigners, and especially 
Englishmen, would bear this in mind, they would save them- 
selves a great deal of time, trouble, and disappointment, and not 
expose themselves by their loss of temper on the spot, or in their 
note-books. No Spaniard is ever put out at meeting with 
neither attention nor accommodation, although he maddens in a 
moment on other occasions at the slightest personal affront, for 
his blood boils without fire. He takes these things coolly, which 
colder. blooded foreigners seldom do. The native, like the 
Oriental, does not expect to find anything, and accordingly is 
never surprised at only getting what he brings with him. His 
surprise is reserved for those rare occasions when he finds any- 
thing actually ready, which he considers to be a godsend. As 
most travellers carry their provisions with them, the uncertainty 
of demand would prevent mine host from filling his larder with 
perishable commodities • and formerly, owing to absurd local 



174 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

privileges, he very often was not permitted to sell objects of 
consumption to travellers, because the lords or proprietors of the 
town or village had set up other shops, little monopolies of their 
own. These inconveniences sound worse on paper that in prac- 
tice ; for whenever laws are decidedly opposed to common sense 
and the public benefit, they are neutralized in practice ; the 
means to elude them are soon discovered, and the innkeeper, if 
he has not the things by him himself, knows where to get them. 
On starting next day a sum is charged for lodging, service, and 
dressing the food : this is called el ruido de casa, an indemnifica- 
tion to mine host for the noise, the disturbance, that the traveller 
is supposed to have created, which is the old Italian incommodo 
de la casa, the routing and inconveniencing of the house ; and 
no word can be better chosen to express the varied and never- 
ceasing din of mules, muleteers, songs, dancing, and laughing, 
the dust, the row, which Spaniards, men as well as beasts, kick 
up. The English traveller, who will have to pay the most in 
purse and sleep for jiis noise, will often be the only quiet person 
in the house, and might claim indemnification for the injury 
done to his acoustic organs, on the principle of the Turkish 
soldier who forces his entertainer to pay him teeth-money, to 
compensate for the damage done to his morals and incisors from 
masticating indifferent rations. 

Akin to the posada is the " parador,'" a word probably derived 
from Waradah, Arabice, " a halting-place ;" it is a huge caravan- 
sary for the reception of v/aggons, carts, and beasts of burden ; 
these large establishments are often placed outside the town to 
avoid the heavy duties and vexatious examinations at the gates, 
Avhere dues on all articles of consumption are levied both for 
municipal and government purposes. They are the old sisa, a 
word derived from the Hebrew Sisah, to take a sixth part, and 
are now called el dereclio de puertas, the gate-due ; and have 
always been as unpopular as the similar octroi of France ; and 
as they are generally farmed out, they are exacted from the 
peasantry with great severity and incivility. There is perhaps 
no single grievance among the many, in the mistaken system of 
Spanish political and fiscal economy, which tends to create and 
keep alive, by its daily retail worry and often wholesale injustice, 



SPANISH INNKEEPERS. 



so great a feeling of discontent and ill-will towards authority as 
this does ; it obstructs both commerce and travellers. The officers 
are, however, seldom either strict or uncivil to the higher classes, 
and if courteously addressed by the stranger, and told that he is 
an English gentleman, the official Cerleri open the gates and 
let him pass unmolested, and still more if quieted by ttie Vir- 
gilian sop of a bribe. The laws in Spain are indeed strict on 
paper, but those who administer them, whenever it suits their 
private interest, that is ninety-nine times out of a hundred, evade 
and defeat them ; they obey the letter, but do not perform the 
spirit, "56 ohedece, pero no se cumple ;" indeed, the lower classes 
of officials in particular are so inadequately paid that they are 
compelled to eke out a livelihood by taking bribes and little 
presents, which, as Backshish in the East, may always be offered, 
and will always be accepted, as a matter of compliment. The 
idea of a bribe must be concealed ; it shocks their dignity, their 
sense of honor, their "pundo7ior ;" if, however, the money be 
given to the head person as something for his people to drink, 
the delicate attention is sacked by the chief, properly appreciated, 
and works its due effect. 

Another term, almost equivalent to the " posada," is the " meson,'' 
which is rather applicable to the inns of the rural and smaller 
towns, to the " hosterias," than to those of the greater. The " me- 
sonero,'' like the Spanish '•' ventera," has a bad reputation. It is 
always as well to stipulate something about prices beforehand. 
The proverb says, " For un ladron, piey-den ciento en el meson''' — 
" Ventera hermosa, mal para la lolsa." "For every one who is 
robbed on the road, a hundred are in the inn." — " The fairer the 
hostess, the fouler the reckoning." It is among these innkeepers 
that the real and worst robbers of Spain are to be met with, since 
these classes of worthies are everywhere only thinking how much 
they can with decency overcharge in their bills. This is but 
fair, for nobody would be an innkeeper if it were not for the profit. 
The trade of innkeeping is among those which are considered 
derogatory in Spain, where so many Hindoo notions of caste, self- 
respect, purity of blood, etc., exist. The harboring strangers for 
gain is opposed to every ancient and Oriental law of sacred hos- 
pitality. Now no Spaniard, if he can help it, likes to degrade 



176 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

himself; this accounts for the number of yo?itZas in towns being 
kept by Frenchmen, Italians, Catalans, Biscayans, who are all 
foreigners in the eye of the Castilian, and disliked and held cheap ; 
accordingly the innkeeper in Don Quixote protests that he is a 
Christian, although a ventero, nay, a genuine old one — Cristiano 
viejo rancio ; an old Christian being the common term used to 
distinguish the genuine stock from those renegade Jews and Moors 
who, rather than leave Spain, hec&me pseudo-Christians and pub- 
licans. 

The country Parador, Meson, Posada, and Venta, call it how 
you will, is the Roman stabulum, whose original intention was 
the housing of cattle, while the accommodation of travellers was 
secondary, and so it is in Spain to this day. The accommodation 
for the beast is excellent ; cool, roomy stables, ample mangers, 
a never- failing supply of fodder and water, every comfort and lux- 
ury which the animal is capable of enjoying, is ready on the spot ; 
as regards man, it is just the reverse ; he must forage abroad for 
anything he may want. Only a small part of the barn is allotted 
him, and then he is lodged among the brutes below, or among the 
trusses and sacks of their food in the lofts above. He finds, in 
spite of all this, that if he asks the owner what he has got, he will 
be told that " there is everything," hay de todo, just as the rogue 
of a ventero informed Sancho Panza that his empty larder con- 
tained all the birds of the air, all the beasts of the earth, all the 
fishes of the sea, — a Spanish magnificence of promise, which, when 
reduced to plain English, too often means, as in that case, there is 
everything that you have brought with you. This especially oc- 
curs in the ventas of the out-of-the-way and rarely-visited districts, 
which, however empty their larders, are full of the spirit of Don 
Quixote to the brim ; and the everyday occurrences in them are 
so strange, and one's life is so dramatic, that there is much diffi- 
culty in "realizing," as the Americans say; all is so like being 
in a dream or at a play, that one scarcely can believe it to be ac- 
tually taking place and true. The man of the note-book and the 
artist almost forget that there is nothing to cat ; meanwhile all 
this food for the mind and portfolio, all this local color and odd- 
ness, is lost upon your Spanish companion, if he be one of the 
better classes : he is ashamed where you are enchanted ; he 



THE VENTA. 



blushes at the sad want of civilization, clean table-cloth, and beef- 
steaks, and perhaps he is right : at all events, while you are raving 
about the Goths, Moors, and this lifting up the curtain of two 
thousand years ago, he is thinking of Mivart's ; and when you 
quote Martial, he and the ventero set you down as talking non- 
sense, and stark staring mad ; nay, a Spanish gentleman is often 
affronted, and suspects, from the impossibility to him, that such 
things can be objects of real admiration, that you are laughing at 
him in your sleeve, and considering his country as Roman, African 
or, in a word, as un-European, which is what he particularly dis- 
likes and resents. 

These ventas have from time immemorial been the subject of 
jests and pleasantries to Spanish and foreign wits. Quevedo and 
Cervantes indulge in endless diatribes against the roguery of the 
masters, and the misery of the accommodations, while Gongora 
compares them to Noah's ark ; and in truth they do contain a 
variety of animals, from the big to the small, and more than a 
pair, of more than one kind of the latter. The word venta is 
derived from the Latin vendendo, on the lucus a non lucendo 
principle of etymology, because provisions are not sold in it to 
travellers : old Covarrubias explains this mode of dealing as 
consisting " especially in selling a cat for a hare," which indeed 
was and is so usual a venta practice, that venderlo a uno gato 
por liehre has become in common Spanish parlance to be equiva- 
lent to doing or taking one in. The natives do not dislike the 
feline tribe when well stewed : no cat was safe in the Alhambra, 
the galley-slaves bagged her in a second. This venta trait of 
Iberian gastronomy did not escape the compiler of Gil Bias. 

Be that as it may, a venta, strictly speaking, is an isolated 
country inn, or house of reception on the road, and, if it be not 
one of physical entertainment, it is at least one of moral, and 
accordingly figures in prominent characters in all the personal 
narratives and travels in Spain ; it sharpens the wit of both 
hungry cooks and lively authors, and ingenii largitor venter is 
as old as Juvenal. Many -of these ventas have been built on a 
large scale by the noblemen or convent brethren to whom the 
village or adjoining territory belonged, and some have at a 
distance quite the air of a gentleman's mansion. Their walls, 
9* 



178 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

towers, and often elegant elevations, glitter in the sun, gay and 
promising, while all within is dark, dirty, and dilapidated, and 
no better than a whitened sepulchre. The ground floor is a sort 
of common room for men and beasts ; the portion appropriated 
to the stables is often arched over, and is very imperfectly lighted 
to keep it cool, so that even by day the eye has some difficulty 
at first in making out the details. The ranges of mangers are 
fixed round the walls, and the harness of the different animals 
suspended on the pillars which support the arches ; a wide door 
always open to the road, leads into this great stable ; a small 
space in the interior is generally left unincumbered, into which the 
traveller enters on foot or on horseback ; no one greets him ; no 
obsequious landlord, bustling waiter, or simpering chambermaid 
takes any notice of his arrival : the ventero sits in the sun smok- 
ing, while his wife continues her uninterrupted chasse for " small 
deer" in the thick covers of her daughter's hair ; nor does the 
guest pay much attention to them ; he proceeds to a gibbous water- 
jar, which is always set up in a visible place, dips in with the 
ladle, or takes from the shelf in the wall an alcarraza of cold 
water ; refreshes his baked clay, refills it, and replaces it in its 
hole on the taller, which resembles the decanter stands in a but- 
ler's pantry : he then proceeds, unaided by ostler or boots, to se- 
lect a stall for his beast, — unsaddles and unloads, and in due time 
applies to the ventero for fodder ; the difference of whose cool re- 
ception contrasts with the eager welcome which awaits the travel- 
ler at bedtime : his arrival is a godsend to the creeping tribe, who, 
like the ventero, have no regular larder ; it is not upstairs that he 
eats, but where he is eaten like Polonius ; the walls are frequently 
stained with the marks of nocturnal combats, of those internecine, 
truly Spanish guerrillas, which are waged without an Elliot treaty, 
against enemies who, if not exterminated, murder sleep. Were 
these fleas and French ladybirds unanimous, they would eat up a 
Goliath ; but fortunately, like other Spaniards, they never act 
together, and are consequently conquered and slaughtered in de- 
tail ; hence the proverbial expression for great mortality among 
men, mueren como chinches. 

Having first provided for the Avants and comforts of his beast, 
for "the master's eye fattens the horse," the traveller begins to 



ARRANGEMENT OF THE VENTA. 



think of himself. One, and the greater side of the building, is 
destined to the cattle, the other to their owners. Immediately 
opposite the public entrance is the staircase that leads to the 
upper part of the building, which is dedicated to the lodgment 
of fodder, fowls, vermin, and the better class of travellers. The 
arrangement of the larger class of posadas and ventas is laid out 
on the plan of a convent, and is well calculated to lodge the 
greatest number of inmates in the smallest space. The ingress 
and egress are facilitated by a long corridor, into which the doors 
of the separate rooms open : these are called " cuartos" whence 
our word " quarters" may be derived. There is seldom any fur- 
niture in them; whatever is wanted, is or. is not to be had of the 
host from some lock-up store. A rigid puritan will be much dis- 
tressed for the lack of any artificial contrivance to hold water ; 
the best toilette on these occasions is a river's bank, but rivers in 
unvisited interiors of the Castiles are often rarer even than water- 
basins. It is, however, no use to draw nets in streams where 
there are no fish, nor to expect to find conveniences which no one 
else ever asks for, and those articles which seem to the foreigner 
to be of the commonest and daily necessity, are unknown to the 
natives. However, as there are no carpets to be spoiled, and cold 
water retains its properties although brought up in a horse-bucket 
or in the cook's brass cauldron, ablutions, as the albums express 
it, can be performed. What a school, after all, a venta is to the 
slaves of comforts, and without how many absolute essentials do 
they manage to get on, and happily ! What lessons are taught 
of good-humored patience, and that British sailor characteristic of 
making the best of every occurrence, and deeming any port a 
good one in a storm ! Complaint is of no use ; if you tell the 
landlord that his wine is more sour than his vinegar, he will 
gravely reply, " Senor, that cannot be, for both came out of the 
same cask." 

The portion of the ground-floor which is divided by the public 
entrance from the stables, is dedicated to the kitchen and accom- 
modation of the travellers. The kitchen consists of a huge open 
range, generally on the floor, the ollas pots and culinary vessels 
being placed against the fire arranged in circles, as described by 
Martial, " multa villica quem coronat olid,'''' who, as a good Span- 



ISO THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

iard would do to this day, after thirty-five years' absence at Rome, 
writes, after his return to Spain, to his friend Juvenal a full 
account of the real comforts that he once more enjoys in his best- 
beloved patria, and which remind us of the domestic details in the 
opening chapter of Don Quixote. These rows of pipkins are kept 
up by round stones called " sesos," Irains ; above is a high, wide 
chimney, which is armed with iron- work for suspending pots of a 
large size ; sometimes there are a few stoves of masonry, but 
more frequently they are only the portable ones of the East. 
Around the blackened walls are arranged pots and pipkins, gridi- 
rons and frying-pans, which hang in rows, like tadpoles of all sizes, 
to accommodate large or small parties, and the more the better ; it 
is a good sign, "en casa llena, ■pronto se guisa cena." Supper is 
then sooner ready. 

The vicinity of the kitchen fire being the warmest spot, and 
the nearest to the flesh-pot, is the querencia, the favorite " resort" 
of the muleteers and travelling bagsmen, especially when cold, 
wet and hungry. The first come are the best served, says the 
proverb, in the matters of soup and love. The earliest arrivals 
take the cosiest corner seats near the fire, and secure the prompt- 
est non-attendance ; for the better class of guests there is some- 
times a " private apartment," or the boudoir of the ventera, which 
is made over to those who bring courtesy in their mouths, and 
seem to have cash in their pockets : but these out-of-the-way 
curiosities of comfort do not always suit either author or artist, 
and the social kitchen is preferable to solitary state. When a 
stranger enters into it, if he salutes the company, -'My lords and 
knights, do not let your graces molest yourselves," or courteously 
indicates his desire to treat them with respect, they will assuredly 
more than to return the compliment, and as good breeding is 
instinctive in the Spaniard, will rise and insist on his taking the 
best and highest seat. Greater, indeed, is their reward and satis- 
faction, if they discover that the invited one can talk to them in 
their own lingo, and understands their feelings by circulating his 
cigars and wine bota among them. 

At the side of the kitchen is a den of a room, into which the 
ventero keeps stowed away that stock of raw materials which 
forms the foundation of the national cuisine, and in which garlic 



DINNERS IN THE VENTA. 



plays the first fiddle. The very name, like that of monk, is 
enough to give offence to most English. The evil consists, how- 
ever, in the abuse, not in the use : from the quantity eaten in all 
southern countries, where it is considered to be fragrant, palatable, 
stomachic, and invigorating, we must assume that it is suited by 
nature to local tastes and constitutions. Wherever any particular 
herb grows, there lives the ass who is to eat it. " Donde crece la 
escoba, nace el asno que la roya.^' Nor is garlic necessarily either 
a poison or a source of baseness ; for Henry IV. was no sooner 
born, than his lips were rubbed with a clove of it by his grand- 
father, after the revered old custom of Beam. 

Bread, wine, and raw garlic, says the proverb, make a young 
man go briskly, Pan, vino, y ajo crudo, hacen andar almozo agudo. 
The better classes turn up their noses at this odoriferous delicacy 
of the lower classes, which was forbidden .per statute by Alonzo 
XI. to his knights of La Banda ; and Don Quixote cautions 
Sancho Panza to be moderate in this food, as not becoming to a 
governor : with even such personages however it is a struggle, 
and one of the greatest sacrifices to the altar of civilization and 
les convenances. To give Spanish garlic its due, it must be said 
that, when administered by a judicious hand (for, like prussic 
acid, all depends on the quantity), it is far milder than the Eng- 
lish. Spanish garlic and onions degenerate after three years' 
planting when transplanted into England. They gain in pungen- 
cy and smell, just as English foxhounds, when drafted into Spain, 
lose their strength and scent in the third generation. A clove of 
garlic is called un diente, a tooth. Those who dislike the piquant 
vegetable must place a sentinel over the cook of the venta while 
she is putting into her cauldron the ingredients of his supper, or 
Avicenna will not save him ; for if God sends meats, and here 
they are a godsend, the evil one provides the cooks of the venta, 
who certainly do bedevil many things. 

Thrice happy, then, the man blessed with a provident servant 
who has foraged on the road, and comes prepared with cates on 
which no Castilian Canidia has breathed ; while they are stewing 
he may, if he be a poet, rival those sonnets made in Don Quixote 
on Sancho's ass, saddle-bags, and sapient attention to their pro- 
vend, " su cuerda providencia." The odor and good tidings of 



182 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

the arrival of unusual delicacies soon spread far and wide in the 
village, and generally attract the Cura, who loves to hear 
something new, and does not dislike savory food : the quality of 
a Spaniard's temperance, like that of his mercy, is strained ; his 
poverty and not his will consents to more and other fastings 
than to those enjoined by the church ; hunger, the sauce of Saint 
Bernard, is one of the few wants which is not experienced in a 
Spanish venta. Our practice in one was to invite the curate, by 
begging him to bless the pot-luck, to which he did ample justice, 
and more than repaid for its visible diminution by good fellow, 
ship, local information, and the credit reflected on the stranger 
in the eyes of the natives, by beholding him thus patronized by 
their pastor and master. It is not to be denied in the case of a 
stew of partridges, that deep sighs and exclamations que rico ! 
" how rich !" escape the envious lips of his hungiy flock when 
they behold and whiiTthe odoriferous dish as it smokes past them 
like a railway locomotive. 

Nor, it must be said, was all this hospitality on one side ; it 
has more than once befallen us in the rude ventas of the Sala- 
manca district, that the silver haired cura, whose living barely 
furnished the means whereby to live, on hearing the simple fact 
that an Englishman was arrived, has come down to offer his 
house and fare. Such, or indeed «ny Spaniard's invitation is not 
to be accepted by those who value liberty of action or time ; seat 
rather the good man at the head of the venta board, and regale 
him with your best cigar, he will tell you of El gran Lor — the 
great Lord — the Cid of England ; he will recount the Duke's 
victories, and dwell on the good faith, mercy, and justice of our 
brave soldiers, as he will execrate the cruelty, rapacity, and per- 
fidy of those who fled before their gleaming bayonets. 

But, to return to first arrival at ventas, whether saddle-bag 
or stomach be empty or full, the ventero when you enter remains 
unmoved and imperturbable, as if he never had had an appetite, 
or had lost it, or had dined. Not that his genus ever are seen 
eating except when invited to a guest's stew ; air, the economical 
ration of the chameleon, seems to be his habitual sustenance, and 
still more as to his wife and womankind, who never will sit, and 
eat even with the stranger ; nay, in humbler Spanish families 



VENTA EATING. 183 



they seem to dine with the cat in some cornei", and on scraps ; 
this is a remnant of the Roman and Moorish treatment of women 
as inferiors. Their lord and husband, the innkeeper, cannot con- 
ceive why foreigners on their arrival are always so impatient, 
and is equally surprised at their inordinate appetite ; an English 
landlord's first question, " Will you not like to take some re- 
freshment ?" is the very last which he would think of putting ; 
sometimes by giving him a cigar, by coaxing his wife, flatter- 
ing his daughter, and caressing JMaritornes, you may get a cou- 
ple of his polios or fowls, which run about the ground-floor, 
picking up anything, and ready to be picked up themselves and 
dressed. 

All the operations of cookery and eating, of killing, sousing 
in boiling water, plucking, et csetera, all preparatory as well as 
final, go on in this open kitchen. They are carried out by the 
ventera and her daughters or maids, or by some crabbed, smoke- 
dried, shrivelled old she-cat, that is, or at least is called, the " fea," 
" my aunt," and who is the subject of the good-humored remarks 
of the courteous and hungry traveller before dinner, and of his 
full stomach jests afterwards. The assembled parties crowd 
round the fire, watching and assisting each at their own savory 
messes, " Un ojo a la sarten, y otro a la gala" — " One eye to the 
pan, the other to the real cat," whose very existence in a venta, 
and among the pots, is a miracle ; by the way, the naturalist will 
observe that their ears and tails are almost always cropped closely 
to the stumps. All and each of the travellers, when their respec- 
tive stews are ready, form clusters and groups round the frying- 
pan, which is moved from the fire hot and smoking, and placed on 
a low table or block of wood before them, or the unctuous con- 
tents are emptied into a huge earthen reddish dish, which in form 
and color is the precise paropsis, the food platter, described by 
Martial and by other ancient authors. Chairs are a luxury ; the 
lower classes sit on the ground as in the East, or on low stools, 
and fall to in a most Oriental manner, with an un-European ig- 
norance of forks ;* for which they substitute a short wooden or 

* Forks are an Italian invention ; old Coryate, who introduced this 
"neatnesse" into SomersetsMre, about 1600, was called furdfer by his 



184 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

horn spoon, oi* dip their bread into the dish, or fish up morsels 
with their long pointed knives. They eat copiously, but with 
gravity — with appetite, but without greediness ; for none of any 
nation, as a mass, are better bred or mannered than the lower 
classes of Spaniards. 

They are very pressing in their invitations whenever any eat- 
ing is going on. No Spaniard or Spaniards, however humble 
their class or fare, ever allow any one to come near or pass them 
when eating, without inviting him to partake. " Guste usted 
comer?" " Will your grace be pleased to dine ?" No traveller 
should ever omit to go through this courtesy whenever any 
Spaniards, high or low, approach him when at any meal, espe- 
cially if taking it out of doors, which often happens in these 
journeyings ; nor is it altogether an empty form ; all classes 
consider it a compliment if a stranger, and especially an English- 
man, will condescend to share their dinner. In the smaller 
towns, those invited by English will often partake, even the 
better classes, and who have already dined ; they think it civil to 
accept, and rude to refuse the invitation, and have no objection to 
eating any given good thing, which is the exception to their ordi- 
nary frugal habits : all this is quite Arabian. The Spaniards 
seldom accept the invitation at once ; they expect to be urged by 
an obse(juious host, in order to appear to do a gentle violence to 
their stomachs by eating to oblige km. The angels declined 
Lot's offered hospitalities until they were " pressed greatly." 
Travellers in Spain must not forget this still existing Oriental 
trait ; for if they do not greatly press their offer, they are under- 
stood as meaning it to be a mere empty compliment. We have 
known Spaniards who have called with an intention of staying 
dinner, go away, because this ceremony was not gone through ac- 
cording to their punctilious notions, to which our off-hand man- 
ners are diametrically opposed. Hospitality in a hungry, inn-less 
land becomes, as in the East, a sacred duty ; if a man eats all 

friends. Alexander Barclay thus describes the previous English mode of 
eating, ■which sounds very ve7itaish, although worse mannered : — 

" If the dishe be pleasaunt, eyther flesche or fische, 
Ten hands at once swarm in the dishe." 



AN EVENING AT A VENTA. 



the provender by himself, he cannot expect to have many friends. 
Generally speaking, the offer is not accepted : it is always de- 
clined with the same courtesy which prompts the invitation. 
" Muchas gracias, buen provecho le haga a usted,''^ " Many thanks 
— much good may it do your grace," an answer which is analo- 
gous to the prosit of Italian peasants after eating or sneezing. 
These customs, both of inviting and declining, tally exactly, and 
even to the expressions used among the Arabs to this day. 
Every passer-by is invited by Orientals — "BismiUali ya seeiee" 
which means both a grace and invitation — " In the name of God, 
sir, {i. e.) will you dine with us?" or '■'■Tafud'-dal,'" "Do me 
the favor to partake of this repast." Those who decline reply, 
''Henee an," " May it benefit." 

Supper, which, as with the ancients, is their principal meal, is 
seasoned with copious draughts of the wine of the countr}', drunk 
out of a jug or bota which we have already described, for glasses 
do not abound ; after it is done, cigars are lighted, the rude seats 
are drawn closer to the fire, stories are told, principally on robber 
or love events, the latter of which are by far the truest. Jokes 
are given and taken ; laughter, inextinguishable as that of Homer's 
gods, forms tine chorus of conversation, especially after good eat- 
ing or drinking, to which it is the best dessert. In due time songs 
are sung, a guitar is strummed, for some black-whiskered Figaro 
is sure to have heard of the " arrival," and steals down from the 
pure love of harmony and charms of a cigar ; then flock in 
peasants of both sexes, dancing is set on foot, the fatigues of the 
day are forgotten, and the catching sympathy of mirth extending 
to all, is prolonged until far into the night ; during which, as they 
take a long siesta in the day, all are as wakeful as owls, and 
worse cauterwaulers than cats ; to describe the scene baffles the 
art of pen or pencil. The roars, the dust, the want of every- 
thing in these low-classed ventas, are emblems of the nothingness 
of Spanish life — a jest. One by one the company (^rops off; the 
better classes go up stairs, the humbler and vast majority make 
up their bed on the ground, near their animals, and like them, full 
of food and free from care, fall instantly asleep in spite of the 
noise and discomfort by which they are surrounded. This coun- 
terfeit of death is more equalizing, as Don Quixote says, than 



186 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

death itself, for an honest Spanish muleteer stretched on his hard 
pallet sleeps sounder than many an uneasy trickster head that 
wears another's crown. " Sleep," says Sancho, " covers one over 
like a cloak," and a cloak or its cognate mantle forms the best 
part of their wardrobe by day, and their bed furniture by night. 
The earth is now, as it was to the Iberians, the national bed ; 
nay, the Spanish word which expresses that commodity, cama, is 
derived from the Greek xufiai. Thus they are lodged on the 
ground floor, and thereby escape the three classes of little animals 
which, like the inseparable Graces, are always to be found in 
fine climates in the wholesale, and in Spanish ventas in the retail. 
Their pillow is composed either of their pack-saddles or saddle- 
bags ; their sleep is short, but profound. Long before daylight 
all are in motion ; " they take up their bed," the animals are fed, 
harnessed, and laden, and the heaviest sleepers awakened : there 
is little morning toilette, no time or soap is lost by biped or quad- 
ruped in the processes of grooming or lavation : both carry their 
wardrobes on their back, and trust to the showers and the sun to 
cleanse and bleach ; their moderate accounts are paid, salutations 
or execrations (generally the latter), according to the length of 
the bills, pass between them and their landlords, and another day 
of toil begins. Our faithful and trustworthy squire seldom failed 
for a couple of hours after leaving the ve7ita to pour forth an elo- 
quent stream of oaths, invectives, and lamentations at the dearness 
of inns, the rascality of their keepers, in general, and of the host 
of the preceding night in particular, although probably a couple 
of dollars had cleared the account for a couple of men and ani- 
mals, and he himself had divided the extra-extortion with the 
honest ventero. 

These Spanish venta scenes vary every day and night, as a new 
set of actors make their first and last appearance before the tra- 
veller ; of one thing there can be no mistake, he has got out of 
England, and the present year of our Lord. Their undeniable 
smack of antiquity gives them a relish, a lorracha, which is un- 
known in Great Britain, where all is fused and modernized down 
to last Saturday night : here alone can you see and study those 
manners and events which must have occurred on the same sites 
when Hannibal and Scipio vvei-e last there, as it would be very 



THE VENTORILLO. 



easy to work out from the classical authors. We would just sug- 
gest a comparison between the arrangement of the Spanish coun- 
try venta with that of the Roman inn now uncovered at the en- 
trance of Pompeii, and its exact counterpart, the modern " os- 
teria,'' in the same district of Naples. In the Museo Borbonico 
will be found types of most of the utensils now used in Spain, 
while the Oriental and most ancient style of cuisine is equally 
easy to be identified with the notices left us in the cookery books 
of antiquity. The same may be said of the tambourines, cas- 
tanets, songs, and dances, — in a word, of everything ; and, in- 
deed, when all are hushed in sleep, and stretched like corpses 
amid their beasts, the Valencians especially, in their sandals and 
kilts, in their mantas, and in and on their rush-baskets and mat- 
tings, we feel that Strabo must have beheld the old Iberians ex- 
actly in the same costume and position, when he told us what we 
see now to be true, to nXeop bv aayoig, ev dig nsQ xai art^adonoi- 
Tovat. 

The " ventorillo" is a lower class of venta — for there is a deeper 
bathos ; it is the German kneipe or hedge ale-house, and is often 
nothing more than a mere hut, run up with reeds or branches of 
trees by the road-side, at which water, bad Avine, and brandy, 
" aguardiente,' ' tooth water, are to be sold. The latter is always 
detestable, raw, and disflavored with anniseed, and turns white in 
water like Eau de Cologne, not that the natives ever expose it to 
such a trial. These " ventorillos" are at best suspicious places, 
and the haunts of the spies of regular robbers, or of skulking 
footpads when there are any. who lurk inside with the proprietress ; 
she herself generally might sit as a model for Hecate, or for one 
of the witches in Shakspeare over their cauldron ; her attendant 
imps are, however, sufficiently interesting personages to form a 
chapter by themselves. 



THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

Spanish. Robbers — A Robber Adventure — Guardias CiTiles — Exaggerated 
Accounts — Cross of the Murdered — Idle Robber Tales — French Ban- 
dittiphobia — Robber History — Guerrilleros — Smugglers — Jose Maria — 
Robbers of the First Class — The Ratero — Miguelites — Escorts and Es- 
copeteros — Passes, Protections, and Talismans — Execution of a Robber. 

An olla without bacon would scarcely be less insipid than a 
volume on Spain without banditti ; the stimulant is not less neces- 
sary for the established taste of the home-market, than brandy is 
for pale sherries neat as imported. In the mean time, while the 
timid hesitate to put their heads into this supposed den of thieves 
as much as into a house that is haunted, those who are not scared 
by shadows, and do not share in the fears of cockney critics and 
delicate writers in satin-paper albums, but adventure boldly into 
the hornet's nest, come back in a firm belief of the non-existence 
of the robber genus. In Spain, that pays de Vimprivu, this unex- 
pected absence of personages who render roads uncomfortable, is 
one of the many and not disagreeable surprises, which await those 
whoj)referto judge of a country by going there themselves, rather 
than to put implicit faith in the foregone conclusions and stereo- 
typed prejudices of those who have not, although they do sit in 
judgment on those who have, and decide " without a view.''' This 
very summer, some dozen and more friends of ours have made 
tours in various parts of the Peninsula, driving and riding un- 
armed and unescorted through localities of former suspicion, with- 
out having the good luck of meeting even with the ghost of a de- 
parted robber ; in truth and fact, we cannot but remember that 
such things as monks and banditti were, although they must be 
spoken of rather in the past than in the present tense. 

The actual security of the Spanish highways is due to the 
Moderados, as the French party and imitators of the juste milieu 
are called, and at the head of whom may be placed Senor Marti' 



A ROBBER ADVENTURE. 



riez de la Rosa. He, indeed, is a moderate in poetry as well as 
politics, and a rare specimen of that sublime of mediocrity which, 
according to Horace, neither men, gods, nor booksellers can tole- 
rate ; his reputation as an author and statesman — alas ! poor Cer- 
vantes and Cisneros — proves too truly the present efFeteness of 
Spain. Her pen and her sword are blunted, her laurels are sear, 
and her womb is barren ; but among the blind, he who has one 
eye is king. 

This dramatist, in the May of 1833, was summoned from his 
exile at Granada to Madrid by the suspicious Calomarde. The 
mail in which he travelled was stopped by robbers, about ten 
o'clock of a wet night near Almuradiel ; — the guard, at the first 
notice, throwing himself on his belly, with his face in the mud, 
in imitation of the postilions, who pay great respect to the gentle- 
men of the road. The passengers consisted of himself, a Ger- 
man artist, and an English friend of ours now in London, and who, 
having given up his well-garnished purse at once with great 
good-humor, was most courteously treated by the well-satisfied 
recipients ; not so the Deutscher, on whom they were about to do 
personal violence in revenge for a scanty scrip, had not his pro- 
fession been explained by our friend, by whose interference he 
was let off. Meanwhile, the Don was hiding his watch in the car- 
riage lining, which he cut open, and was concealing his few dol- 
lars, the existence of which when questioned he stoutly denied. 
They, however, re-appeared under threats of the bastinado, which 
were all but inflicted. The passengers were then permitted to 
depart in peace, the leader of their spoilers having first shaken 
hands with our informant, and wished him a pleasant journey : — 
"May your grace go with God and without novelty ;" adding, 
" You are a cabaJlero, a gentleman, as all the English are ; the 
German is a pobrecito, a poor devil ; the Spaniard is an embustero, 
a regular swindler." This latter gentleman, thus hardly de- 
lineated by his Lavater countryman, has since more than got- 
ten back his cash, having risen to be prime minister to Chris- 
tina, and humble and devoted servant of Louis-Philippe, cosas de 
Espana. 

Possibly this little incident may have facilitated the introduction 
of mounted guards, who are now stationed in towns, and by whom 



190 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

the roads are regularly patrolled ; they are called guardias civiles, 
and have replaced the ancient "brotherhood" of Ferdinand and 
Isabella. As they have been dressed and modelled after the fash- 
ion of the transpyrenean gendarmerie, the Spaniards, who never 
lose a chance of a happy nickname, or of a fling at the things of 
their neighbor, whom they do not love, term them, either PoUzon- 
tes or Polizones, words with which they have enriched their phra- 
seology, and that represent the French polissons, scoundrels, or 
they call them Hijos de Luis-PMlipe, " sons of Louis-Philippe ;" 
for they are ill-bred enough, in spite of the Montpensier marriage, 
and the Nelsonic achievements of Monsieur de Joinville, to con- 
sider the words as synonyines. 

The number of these rogues, French king's sons, civil guards, 
call them as you will, exceeds five thousand. During the recent 
Machiavelianisms of their putative father, they have been quite 
as much employed in the towns as on the highway, and for politi- 
cal purposes rather than those of pure police, having been used to 
keep down the expression of indignant public opinion, and instead 
of catching thieves, in upholding those first-rate criminals, foreign 
and domestic, who are now robbing poor Spain of her gold and 
liberties ; but so it has always been. Indeed, when we first ar- 
rived in the Peninsula, and naturally made enquiries about ban- 
ditti, according to all sensible Spaniards, it was not on the road 
that they were most likely to be found, but in the confessional 
boxes, the lawyers' offices, and still more in the bureaux of gov, 
ernment ; and even in England some think that purses are ex- 
posed to more danger in Chancery Lane and Stone Buildings, 
than in the worst cross-road, or the most rocky mountain pass in 
the Peninsula. 

It will be long, however, before this " great fact " is believed 
within the sound of Bow-bells, where many of those who provide 
the reading public with correct information, dislike having to eat 
their own words, and to have their settled opinions shaken or con- 
tradicted. Nor is it pleasant at a certain time of life to go again 
to school, as one does when studying Niebuhr's Roman History, 
and then to find that the alphabet must be re-begun, since all that 
was thought to be right is in fact wrong. Distant Spain is ever 
looked at through a telescope which either magnifies richness and 



THE MURDERED MAN'S CROSS. 



goodness, from which half at least must be deducted according to 
the proverb, de los dineros y bondad, se ha de quitar la miiad, or 
darkens its dangers and difficulties through a discolored medium. 
A bad name given to a dog or country is very adhesive; and the 
many will repeat each other in cuckoo-note. " II y a des choses," 
says Montesquieu, " que tout le monde dit, parcequ'elles ont ete 
dites une fois ;" thus one silly sheep makes many, who will fol- 
low their leader ; ovejas y bobas, donde va una, van todas. So in 
the end error becomes stamped with current authority, and is re- 
ceived, until the false, imaginary picture is alone esteemed, and 
the true, original portrait scouted as a cheat. 

It has so long and annually been considered permissible, when 
writing about romantic Spain, to take leave of common sense, 
to ascend on stilts, and converse in the Cambyses vein, that thos*^ 
who descend to humble prose, and confine themselves to com- 
monplace matter-of-fact, are considered not only to be ingesthetic, 
unpoetical, and unimaginative, but deficient in truth and power 
of observation. The genius of the land, when speaking of itself 
and its things, is prone to say the thing which is not ; and it 
must be admitted that the locality lends itself often and readily 
to misconceptions. The leagues and leagues of lonely hills and 
wastes, over which beasts of prey roam, and above which vul- 
tures sulkily rising part the light air with heavy wing, are easily 
peopled, by those who are in a prepared train of mind, with 
equally rapacious bipeds of Plato's unfeathered species. Rocky 
passes, contrived as it were on purpose for ambuscades, tangled 
glens overrun with underwood, in spite of the prodigality of 
beauty which arrests the artist, suggest the lair of snakes and 
robbers. Nor is the feeling diminished by meeting the frequent 
crosses set up on classically piled heaps, which mark the grave 
of some murdered man, whose simple, touching epitaph tells the 
name of the departed, the date of the treacherous stab, and en- 
treats the passenger, who is as he was, and may be in an instant 
as he IS, to pray for his unannealed soul. A shadow of death 
hovers over such spots, and throws the stranger on his own 
thoughts, which, from early associations, are somewhat in unison 
with the scene. Nor is the welcome of the outstretched arms of 
these crosses over-hearty, albeit they are sometimes hung with 



192 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

flowers, which mock the dead. Nor are all sermons more elo- 
quent than these silent stones, on which such brief emblems are 
fixed. The Spaniards, from long habit, are less affected by 
them than foreigners, being all accustomed to behold crosses and 
bleeding crucifixes in churches and out ; they moreover well 
know that by far the greater proportion of these memorials have 
been raised to record murders, which have not been perpetrated by 
robbers, but are the results of sudden quarrel or of long brooded- 
over revenge, and that wine and women, nine times out of ten, 
are at the bottom of the calamity. Nevertheless, it makes a 
stout English heart uncomfortable, although it is of little use to 
be afraid when one is in for it, and on the spot. Then there is 
no better chance of escape, than to brave the peril and to ride 
on. Turn, therefore, dear reader, a deaf ear to the tales of lo- 
cal terror which will be told in every out-of-the-way village 
by the credulous, timid inhabitants. You, as we have often 
been, will be congratulated on having passed such and such a 
wood, and will be assured that you will infallibly be robbed at 
such and such a spot a few leagues onward. We have always 
found that this ignis fatuus, like the horizon, has receded as we 
advanced ; the dangerous spot is either a little behind or a little 
before the actual place — it vanishes, as most difficulties do, when 
boldly approached and grappled with. 

At the same time these sorts of places and events admit of 
much fine writing when people get safely back again, to say 
nothing of the dignity and heroic elevation which may be thus 
obtained by such an exhibition of valor during the long vaca- 
tion. Peaked hats, hair-breadth escapes from long knives and 
mustachios, lying down for an hour on your stomach with your 
mouth in the mud. are little interludes so diametrically opposed 
to civilization, and the humdrum, unpicturesque routine of free 
Britons who pay way and police rates, that they form almost ir- 
resistible topics to the pen of a ready writer. And such exciting 
incidents are sure to take, and to affect the public at home, who, 
moreover, are much pleased by the perusal of authentic accounts 
from Spain itself, and the best and latest intelligence, which tally 
with their own preconceived ideas of the land. Hence those au- 
thors are the most popular who put the self-love of their reader 



BANDITTIPHOBIA OF FRENCH TOURISTS. 193 

in best humor with his own stock of knowledge. And this ac- 
counts for the frequency, in Peninsular sketches, personal narra- 
tives, and so forth, of robberies which are certainly oftener to be 
met with in their pages than on the plains of the Peninsula. The 
writers know that a bandit adventure is as much expected in the 
journals of such travels as in one of Mrs. Zlatcliffe's romances ; 
such fleeting books are chiefly made by '' striking events ;" ac- 
cordingly, the authors string together all the floating traditional 
horrors which they can scrape together on Spanish roads, and 
thus feed and keep up the notion epcertained in many counties in 
England, that the whole Peninsula is peopled with banditti. If 
such were the case society couM not exist, and the very fact, of 
almost all the reporters havi;Jg themselves escaped by a miracle, 
might lead to the inference that most other persons escape like- 
wise : a blot is not a blot till it is hit. 

Our ingenious neighiors, strange to say in so gallant a people, 
have a still more decided bandittiphobia. According to what the 
badauds of Paris arc told in print, every rash individual, before 
he takes his place in the dilly for Spain, ought by all means to 
make his will, as was done four hundred years ago at starting on 
a pilgrimage to Jerusalem ; possibly this may be predicated in 
the spirit rf French diplomacy, which always has a concealed 
arriere pensee, and it may be bruited abroad, on the principle 
with which illicit distillers and coin-forgers give out that certain 
localities are haunted, in order to scare away others, and thus 
preserve for themselves a quiet possession. Perhaps the supera- 
bundance of I'esprit Franqais may give color and substance to 
forms insignificant in themselves, as a painter lost in a brown 
study over a coal fire converts cinders into castles, monsters, and 
other creatures of his lively imagination ; or it may be, as con- 
science makes cowards of all, that these gentlemen really see a 
bandit in every bush of Spain, and expect from behind every rock 
an avenging minister of retaliation, in whose pocket is a list of 
the church plate, Murillos, &c. which were found missing after 
their countrymen's invasion. Be that as it may, even so clever 
a man as Monsieur Quinet, a real Dr. Syntax, fills pages of his 
recent Vacances with his continual trepidations, although, from 
having arrived at his journey's end without any sort of accident, 

PART II. 10 



194 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

albeit not without every kind of fear, it might have crossed him, 
that the bugbears existed only in his own head, and he might have 
concealed, in his pleasant pages, a frame of mind the exhibition 
of vi^hich, in Eng;land at least, inspires neither interest nor re- 
spect ; an over-care of self is not over-heroic. 

It must be also admitted that the respectability and character of 
many a Spaniard is liable to be misunderstood, when he sets forth 
on any of his travels, except in a public wheel conveyance ; as 
we said in our ninth chapter, he assumes the national costume of 
the road, and leaves his wife and long- tailed coat behind him. 
Now as most Spaniards are muifled up and clad after the approved 
melodrame fashion of robbers, they may be mistaken for them in 
reality ; indeed they are generally sallow, have fierce black eyes, 
uncombed hair, and on these occasions neglect the daily use of 
towels and razors ; a long beard gives, and not in Spain alone, a 
ferocious ruffian-like look, which is not ditninished when gun and 
knife are added to match faces a la Brutus. Again, these wor- 
thies thus equipped, have sometimes a trick of staring rather fix- 
edly from under their slouched hat at the passing stranger, whose, 
to them, outlandish costume excites curiosity and suspicion ; nat- 
urally therefore some difficulty does exist in distingui-shing the me- 
rino from the wolf, when both are disguised in the same clothing 
— a zamarra sheepskin to wit. A private Spanish gentleman, 
who, in his native town, would be the model of a peaceable and 
inoffensive burgess, or a respectable haberdasher, has, wherv on 
his commercial tour, altogether the appearance of the Bravo of 
Venice, and such-like heroes, by whom children are frightened at 
a minor theatre. In consequence of the difficulty of outliving 
what has been learnt in the nursery, many of our countrymen 
have, with the best intentions, set down the bulk of the population 
of the Peninsula as one gang of robbers — they have exaggerated 
their numbers like Falstaff 's men of buckram ; the said imagined 
Rinaldo Rinaldinis being probably in a still greater state of alarm 
from having on their part taken our said countrymen for robbers, 
and this mutual misunderstanding continues, until both explain 
their slight mistake of each other's character and intention. Al- 
though we never fell into the error of thus mistaking Spanish 
peaceable traders for privateers and men-of-war, yet that injustice 



IDLE ROBBER TALES. 



has been done by them to us ; possibly this compliment may have 
been paid to our careful observation of the bearing and garb of 
their great Rob Roy himself and in his own country, which, to 
one about to undertake, in those days, long and solitary rides over 
the Peninsula, was an unspeakable advantage. 

But even in those perilous times, robberies were the exception, 
not the rule, in spite of the full, whole, and exact particulars of 
natives as well as strangers ; the accounts were equally exag- 
gerated by both parties ; in fact, the subject is the standing dish, 
the common topic of the lower classes of travellers, when talking 
and smoking round the venta fires, and forms the natural and 
agreeable religio loci, the associations connected with wild and 
cut-throat localities. Though these narrators' pleasure is mingled 
with fear and pain, they delight in such histories as children do 
in goblin tales. Their Oriental amplification is inferior only to 
their credulity, its twin sister, and they end in believing their own 
lies. Whenever a I'obbery really does take place, the report 
spreads far and wide, and gains in detail and atrocity, for no mule- 
teer's story or sailor's yarn loses in the telling. The same dire 
event, — names, dates, and localities only varied, — is served up, as a 
monkish miracle in the mediaeval ages was, at many other places, 
and thus becomes infinitely multiplied. It is talked offer months 
all over the country, while the thousands of daily passengers 
who journey on unhurt are never mentioned. It is like the lot- 
tery, in which the great prize alone attracts attention, not the 
infinite majority of blanks. These robber-tales reach the cities, 
and are often believed by most respectable people, who pass their 
lives without stirring a league beyond the walls. They sympa- 
thize with all who ai-e compelled to expose themselves to the 
great pains and perils, the travail of travel, and they endeavor 
with the most good-natured intentions to dissuade rash adventurers 
from facing them, by stating as facts, the apprehensions of their 
own credulity and imagination. 

The muleteers, venieros, and masses of common Spaniards 
see in the anxious faces of timid strangers, that their audience is 
in the listening and believing vein, and as they are garrulous and 
egotists by nature, they seize on a theme in which they alone hold 
forth ; they are pleased at being considered an authority, and 



196 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

with the superiority which conveying information gives, and the 
power of inspiring fear confers ; their mother- wit, in which few 
nations surpass them, soon discovers the sort of information 
which " our correspondent" is in want of, and as words here cost 
nothing, the gulping gobemouche is plentifully supplied with 
the required article. These reports are in due time set up in type, 
and are believed because in print ; thus the- tricks played on poor 
Mr. Inglis and his note-book were the laughter of the whole Pen- 
insula, grave authorities caught the generous infection, until Mr. 
Mark's robber-jokes at Malaga were booked and swallowed as if 
he had been an apostle instead of a consul. 

As it was our fate to have wandered up and down the Peninsula 
when Ferdinand VII. was King of the Spains, and Jose Maria, 
at whose name old men and women there tremble yet, was auto- 
crat of Andalucia, the moment was propitious for studying the 
philosophy of Spanish banditti, and our speculations were much 
benefitted by a fortunate acquaintance with the redoubtable chief 
himself, from whom, as well as from many of his intelligent fol- 
lowers, we received much kindness and valuable information, 
which is acknowledged with thankfulness. 

Historically speaking, Spain has never enjoyed a good cha- 
racter in this matter of the highway ; it had but an indifferent 
reputation in the days of antiquity, but then, as now, it was 
generally the accusation of foreigners. The Romans who had 
no business to invade it, were harassed by the native guerrilleros, 
those undisciplined bands who waged the " little war," which 
Iberia always did. Worried b}' these unmilitary voltigeurs, 
they called all Spaniards who resisted them " latrones ;^' just 
as the French invaders, from the same reasons, called them la- 
drones or brigands, because they had no uniform ; as if the wear- 
ing a schako given by a plundering marshal, could convert a 
pillager into an honest man, or the want of it could change into a 
thief, a noble patriot who was defending his own property and 
country ; but I'habit ne fait pas le moine, say the French, and 
aunque la mona se viste de seda, mona se queda, although a mon- 
key dresses in silk, monkey it remains, rejoin the Spaniards. 

Armed men are in fact the weed of the soil of Spain, in peace 
or war ; to have their hand against all mankind seems to be an 



GUERRILLEROS. 197 



instinct in every descendant of Ishmael, and particularly among 
this Quixotic branch, whose knight-errants, reformers on horse- 
back, have not unfrequently been robbers in the guise of gentle- 
men. During the war against Buonaparte, the Peninsula 
swarmed with insurgents, many of whom were inspired by a 
sense of loyalty, with indignation at their outraged religion, and 
with a deep-rooted national loathing of the gabacho, and good 
service did these Minas and Co. do to. the cause of their lawful 
king ; but others used patriotic professions as specious cloaks to 
cover their instinctive passion for a lawless and freebooting 
career, and before the liberation of the country was effected, had 
become formidable to all parties alike. The Duke of Welling- 
ton with his characteristic sagacity, foresaw, at his victorious con- 
clusion of the struggle, how difficult it would be to weed out " this 
strange fruit borne on a tree grafted by patriotism." The transi- 
tion from murdering a Frenchman, to plundering a stranger, 
appeared a simple process to these patriotic scions, whose num- 
bers were swelled with all who were, or who considered them- 
selves to be, ill used — with all who could not dig, and were 
ashamed to beg. The evil was diminished during the latter year 
of the reign of Ferdinand VII., when the old hands began to die 
off, and an advance in social improvement was unquestionably 
general, before which these lawless occupations gave way, as 
surely as wild animals of prey do before improved cultivation. 
These evils, that are abated by internal quiet and the continued 
exertions of the authorities, increase with troubled times, which, 
as the tempest calls forth the stormy petrel, rouse into dangerous 
action the worst portions of society, and create a sort of civil ca- 
chexia, as we now see in Ireland. 

Another source was, not to say is, Gibraltar, that hot-bed of 
contraband, that nursery of the smuggler, the prima materia of a 
robber and murderer. The financial ignorance of the Spanish 
government calls him in, to correct the errors of Chancellors of 
Exchequers: — " ti'ovata la legge, trovato I'inganno." The fiscal 
regulations are so ingeniously absurd, complicated, and vexatious, 
that the honest, legitimate merchant is as much embarrassed as 
the irregular trader is favored. The operation of excessive du- 
ties on objects which people must, and therefore will have, is as 



198 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

strikingly exemplified in the case of tobacco in Andalucia, as it is 
in that, and many other articles on the Kent and Sussex coasts : 
in both countries the fiscal scourge leads to breaches of the peace, 
injury to the fair dealer, and loss to the revenue ; it renders idle, 
predatory, and ferocious, a peasantry which, under a wiser sys- 
tem, and if not exposed to overpowering temptation, might become 
virtuous and industrious. In Spain the evasion of such laws is 
only considered as cheating those who cheat the people ; the vil- 
lagers are heart and soul in favor of the smuggler, as they are of 
the poacher in England; all their prejudices are on his side. 
Some of the mountain curates, whose flocks are all in that line, 
deal with the crime in their sermons as a conventional, not a moral 
one ; and, like other people, decorate their mantel-pieces with a 
painted clay figure of the sinner in his full 7najo dress. The 
smuggler himself, so far from feeling degraded, enjoys the reputa- 
tion which attends success in personal adventure, among a people 
proud of individual prowess ; he is the hero of the Spanish stage, 
and comes on equipped in full costume, with his blunderbuss, to 
sing the well-known " Yo ! que soy contrahandista ! yo ho .'" to 
the delight of all listeners, from the Straits to the Bidasoa, custom- 
house officers not excepted. 

The prestige of such a theatrical exhibition, like the ' Robbei-s' 
of Schiller, is enough to make all the students of Salamanca take 
to the high road. The contrahandista is the Turpin, the Macheath 
of realhy, and those heroes of the old ballads and theatres of Eng- 
land, who have disappeared more in consequence of enclosures, 
rapid conveyances, and macadamization (for there is nothing so 
hateful to a highwayman as gas and a turnpike), than from fear 
of the prison or the halter. The writings of Smollett, the recol- 
lections of many now alive of the dangers of Hounslow Heath and 
Finchley Common, recall scenes of life and manners from which 
we have not long emerged, and which have still more recently 
been corrected in Spain. The contrahandista in his real character 
is welcome in every village ; he is the newspaper and channel of 
intelligence ; he brings tea and gossip for the curate, money and 
cigars for the attorney, ribands and cottons for the women ; he is 
magnificently dressed, which has a great charm for all Moro-Ibe- 
rian eyes ; he is bold and resolute — " none but the brave deserve 



llll,SJ-0 LA.b>S BANDITS. 



the fair;" a good rider and shot ; he knows every inch of the in- 
tricate country, wood or water, hill or dale ; in a word, he is ad- 
mirably educated for the high-road — for what Froissart, speaking 
of the celebrated Amerigot Tetenoire, calls " a fayre and godlie 
life." A.nd the transition from plundering the king's revenue to 
taking one of his subjects' purse on the highway is easy. 

Many circumstances combined to make this freebooting career 
popular among the lower classes. The delight of power, the ex- 
hibition of daring and valor, the temptation o-f sudden wealth, 
always so attractive to half-civilized nations, who prefer the rich 
spoil won by the bravery of an hour, to that of the drudgery of 
years ; the gorgeous appai-el, the lavish expenditure, the song, the 
wassail, the smiles of the fair, and all the joyous life of liberty, 
freemasonry, and good fellowship, operated with irresistible force 
on a warlike, energetic, and imaginative population. 

This smuggling was the origin of Jose Maria's career, who 
rose to the highest rank and honors of his profession, as did Napo- 
leon le Grand and " Jonathan Wild the Great," and principally, 
as Fielding says of his hero, by a power of doing mischief, and a 
principle of considering honesty to be a corruption of honosty, the 
qualities of an ass (oj'os). But it is a great mistake to suppose 
that there always are men fitted to be captains of formidable 
gangs ; nature is chary in the production of such specimens of 
dangerous grandeur, and as ages may elapse before the world is 
cursed with another Alaric, Buonaparte, or Wild, so years may 
pass before Spain witnesses again another Jose Maria. 

The Ladron en grande, the robber on a great scale, is the 
grandee of the first class in his order ; he is the captain of a 
regularly-organized band of followers, from eight to fourteen in 
number, well armed and mounted, and entirely under command 
and discipline. These ai'e very formidable ; and as they seldom 
attack any travellers except with overv^helming forces, and under 
circumstances of ambuscade and surprise, where every thing is 
in their favor, resistance is generally useless, and can only lead 
to fatal accidents. Never, for the sake of a sac de nuit, I'isk 
being sent to Erebus ; submit, therefore, at once and with good 
grace to the summons, which will take no denial, of " aiajo," 
down, " boca a tierra,'' mouth to the earth. Those who have a 



200 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

score or so of dollars, four or five pounds, the loss of which will 
ruin no man, are very rarely ill-used ; a frank, confident, and 
good-humored surrender not only prevents any bad treatment, but 
secures even civility during the disagreeable operation : pistols 
and sabres are after all, a poor defence compared to civil words, 
as Mr. Cribb used to say. The Spaniard, by nature high-bred 
and a " caballero,''^ responds to any appeal to qualities of which 
he thinks his nation has reason to be proud ; he respects coolness 
of manner, in which bold men, although robbers, sympathize. 
Why should a man, because he loses a few dollars, lose also his 
presence of mind or temper, or perhaps life ? Nor are these gran- 
dees of the system without a certain magnanimity, as Cervantes 
knew right well. Witness his graphic account of Roque Guinart, 
whose conduct to his victims and behavior to his comrades tallied, 
to our certain knowledge, with that observed by Jose Maria, and 
was perfectly analogous to the similar traits of character exhi- 
bited by the Italian bandit Ghino de Tacco, the immortalized by 
Dante, as well as by our Robin Hood and Diana's foresters. 
Being strong, they could afford to be generous and merciful. 

Notwithstanding these moral securities, if only by way of 
making assurance doubly sure, an Englishman will do well when 
travelling in exposed districts to be provided with a decent bag 
of dollars, which makes a handsome purse, feels heavy in the 
hand, and is that sort of amount which the Spanish brigand 
thinks a native of our proverbially rich country ought to have 
with him on his travels. Fie has a remarkable tact in estimating 
from the look of an individual, his equipage, &c., how much 
ready money it is befitting his condition for him to have about 
him : if the sum should not be enough, he resents severely his 
being robbed of the regular perquisite to which he considers him- 
self entitled by the long-established usage of the high-road. The 
person unprovided altogether with cash is generally made a severe 
example of, pour encourager les autres, either by being well 
beaten or stripped to the skin, after the fashion of the thieves of 
old, near Jericho. The traveller should have a watch of some 
kind — one with a gaudy gilt chain and seals is the best suited ; 
not to have one exposes him to more indignities than a scantily- 
filled purse. The money may have been spent, but the absence 



THE RATERO. 201 



of a watch can only be accounted for by a premeditated intention 
of not being robbed of it, which the " ladron" considers as a most 
unjustifiable attempt to defraud him of his right. 

The Spanish " ladrones'' are generally armed with a blunder- 
buss, that hangs at their high-peaked saddles, which are covered 
with a white or blue fleece, emblematical enough of shearing pro- 
pensities ; therefore, perhaps, the order of the golden fleece has 
been given to certain foreigners, in reward for having eased Spain 
of her independence and Murillos. Their dress is for the most 
part very rich, and in the highest style of the fancy ; hence they 
are the envy and models of the lower classes, being arrayed after 
the fashion of the smuggler, or the bull-fighter, or in a word, the 
" majo^' or dandy of Andalucia, which is the home and head- 
quarters of all those who aspire to the elegant accomplishments 
and professions just alluded to. The next class of robbers — omit- 
ting some minor distinctions, such as the " salteadores," or two or 
three persons who lie in ambuscade Rndju7np out on the unpre- 
pared traveller — is the " ratero,'" " the rat." He is not brought 
regularl}?- up to the profession and organized, but takes to it on a 
sudden, and for the special occasion which, according to the 
proverb, makes a thief. La ocasion liace al ladron ; and having 
committed his petty larceny, returns to his pristine occupation or 
avocation. 

The " raterillo,'''' or small rat, is a skulking footpad, who 
seldom attacks any but single and unprotected passengers, who, 
if they get robbed, have no one to blame but themselves ; for 
no man is justified in exposing Spaniards to the temptation of 
doing a little something in that line. The shepherd with his 
sheep, the ploughman at his plough, the vine-dresser amid his 
grapes, all have their gun, ostensibly for their individual protec- 
tion, which furnishes means of assault and battery against those 
who have no other defence but their legs and virtue. These 
self-same extemporaneous thieves are, however, remarkably civil 
to armed and prepared travellers ; to them they touch their hats, 
and exclaim, " Good day to you, my lord knight," and " May 
your grace go with God," with all that innocent simplicity 
which is observable in pastorals, opera-ballets, and other equally 
correct representations of rural life. These rats are held in as 
10* 



202 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY 

profound contempt by the higher classes of the profession, as 
political ones used to be, before parties were betrayed by turn- 
coats, who, with tails and without, deserted to the enemies' camp. 
The ladron en grande looks down on this sneaking competitor 
as a regular M.D. and member of the College of Physicians 
does on a quack, who presumes to take fees and kill without a 
licence. However despicable, these rats are very dangerous ; 
lacking the generous feeling which the possession of power and 
united force bestows, they have the cowardice and cruelty of 
weakness : hence they frequently murder their victim, because 
dead men tell no tales. 

The distinction between these higher and lower classes of 
rogues will be better understood by comparing the Napoleon 
of war, with the Napoleon of peace. The Corsican was the 
ladron en grande ; he warred against mankind, he led his armed 
followers to pillage and plunder, he made his den the receiving 
house of the stolen goods of the Continent : but he did it openly 
and manfully by his own right hand and good sword ; and valor 
and audacity are qualities too higli and rare not to command 
admiration — qualified, indeed, when so misapplied. Louis-Phi- 
lippe is a ratero, who, skulking under disguise of amity and good 
faith, works out in the dark, and by cunning, his ends of avarice 
and ambition ; who, acting on the artful dodger (no) principle, 
while kissing the Queen, picks her pocket of a crown. 

It must be stated for the purposes of history that at the time 
when Spain was, or was said to be, overrun with rats and rob- 
bers, there was, as Spaniards have it, a remedy for everything 
except death ; and as the evils were notorious, it was natural that 
means of prevention should likewise exist. If the state of things 
had been so bad as exaggerated report would infer, it would 
have been impossible that any travelling or traffic could have 
been managed in the Peninsula. The mails and diligences, 
being protected by government, were seldom attacked, and those 
who travelled by other methods, and had proper recommenda- 
lions, seldom failed in being provided by the authorities with a 
sufficient escort. A regular body of men was organized for that 
purpose ; they were called " M?gueliies," from, it is said, one 
Miguel de Prats, an armed satellite of the famous or infamous 



MIGUELITES. 



Csesax" Borgia. In Catalonia tliey are called " Mozos de la 
Esctmdra," " Lads of the squadron, land marines ;" they are 
the modern " Hermandad,'^ the brotherhood which formed the 
old Spanish rural armed police. Composed of picked and most 
active young men, they served on foot, under the orders of the 
military powers ; they were dressed in a sort of half uniform 
and half 7najo costume. Their gaiters were black instead of 
yellow, and their jackets of blue trimmed with red. They were 
well armed with a short gun and a belt round the waist in which 
the ammunition was placed, a much more convenient contri- 
vance than our cartouche-box ; they had a sword, a cord for 
securing prisoners, and a single pistol, which was stuck in their 
sashes, at their backs. This corps was on a perfect par with the 
robbers, from whom some of them were chosen ; indeed, the 
common condition of the " mdulto," or pardon to robbers, is to 
enlist, and extirpate their former associates — set a thief to catch 
a thief; both the honest and renegade Miguelites hunted " la 
mala genie," as gamekeepers do poachers. The robbers feared 
and respected them ; an escort of ten or twelve Miguelites might 
brave any number of banditti, who never or rarely attack where 
resistance is to be anticipated ; and in travelling through suspected 
spots these escorts showed singular skill in taking every precaution, 
by throwing out skirmishers in front and at the sides. They 
covered in their progress a large space of ground, taking care 
never to keep above two together, nor more distant from each 
other than gun-shot ; rules which all travellers will do well to 
remember, and to enforce on all occasions of suspicion. The 
rare instances in which Englishmen, especially officers of the 
garrison of Gibraltar, have been robbed, have arisen from a 
neglect of this precaution ; when the whole party ride together 
they may be all caught at once, as in a casting-net. 

It may be remarked that Spanish robbers are very shy in at- 
tacking armed English travellers, and particularly if they appear 
on their guard. The robbers dislike fighting, and the more as 
they do so at a disadvantage, from having a halter round their 
necks, and they hate danger, from knowing what it is ; they have 
no chivalrous courage, nor any more abstract notions of fair play 
than a Turk or a tiger, who are too uncivilized to throw away a 



204 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

chance ; accordingly, they seldom join issue where the defendants 
seem pugnacious, which is likely to be the case with Englishmen. 
They also peculiarly dislike English guns and gunpowder, which, 
in fact, both as arms and ammunition, are infinitely superior to 
those of Spain. Though three or four Englishmen had nothing 
to fear, yet where there wei-e ladies it was better to be provided 
with an escort of Miguelites. These men have a keen and ac- 
curate eye, and were always on the look-out for prints of horses 
and other signs, which, escaping the notice of superficial observ- 
ers, indicated to their practised observations the presence of 
danger. They were indefatigable, keeping up with a carriage 
day and night, braving heat and cold, hunger and thirst. AvS 
they were maintained at the expense of the government, they were 
not, strictly speaking, entitled to any remuneration from those 
travellers whom they were directed to escort ; it was, however, 
usual to give to each man a couple of pesetas a day, and a dollar to 
their leader. The trifling addition of a few cigars, a " iota" or two 
of wine, some rice and dried cod-fish for their evening meal, was 
well bestowed ; exercise sharpened thier appetites ; and they 
were always proud to drink to their master's long life and purse, 
and protect both. 

Those, whether natives or foreigners, who could not obtain or 
afford the expense of an escort to themselves, availed themselves 
of the opportunity of joining company with some party who had 
one. It is wonderful how soon the fact of an escort being granted 
was known, and how the number of travellers increased, who 
were anxious to take advantage of the convoy. As all go armed, 
the united allied forces became more formidable as the number 
increased, and the danger became less. If no one happened to 
be travelling with an escort, then travellers waited for the passage 
of troops, for the government's sending money, tobacco, or any- 
thing else which required protection. If none of these opportuni- 
ties offered, all who were about to travel joined company. This 
habit of forming caravans is very Oriental, and has become quite 
national in Spain, insomuch that it is almost impossible to travel 
alone, as others will join ; weaker and smaller parties will unite 
with all stronger and larger companies whom they meet going the 
same road, whether the latter like it or not. The muleteers are 



TRAVELLING ESCORTS. 



most social and gregarious amongst each other, and will often en- 
deavor to derange their employer's line of route, in order to fall 
in with that of their chance-met comrades. The caravan, like a 
snow-ball, increases in bulk as it rolls on ; it is often pretty 
considerable at the very outset, for, even before starting the mule- 
teers and proprietors of carriages, being well known to each 
other, communicate mutually the number of travellers which 
each has got. 

Travelling in out-of-the-way districts in a " coche de colleras," 
and especially if accompanied with a baggage-waggon, exposes 
the party to be robbed. When the caravan arrives in the small 
villages it attracts immediate notice, and if it gets wind that the 
travellers are foreigners, they are supposed to be laden with gold 
and booty. Such an arrival is a rare event ; the news spreads 
like wildfire, and collects all the " mala gente," the bad set of 
idlers and loiterers, who act as spies, and convey intelligence to 
their confederates ; again, the bulk of the equipage, the noise and 
clatter of men and mules, is seen and heard from afar, by robbers 
if there be any, who lurk in hiding-places or eminences, and are 
well provided with telescopes, besides with longer and sharper 
noses, which, as Gil Bias says, smell coin in travellers' pockets, 
while the slow pace and impossibility of flight renders such a 
party an easy prey to well mounted horsemen. 

This condition of affairs, these dangers, real or imaginary, and 
these precautions, existed principally in journeys by cross roads, 
or through provinces rarely visited, and unprovided with public 
carriages ; if, however, such districts were reputed the worst, 
they often had the advantage of being freer from regular bands, 
for where there are few passengers, why should there be robbers, 
who like spiders place their nets where the supply of flies is 
sure ? — and little do the humbler masses of Spain care either for 
robbers or revolutionists ; they have nothing to lose, and are be- 
neath the notice of pickpockets or pseudo-patriots. Their rags are 
their safeguard, a fine climate clothes them, a fertile soil feeds 
them ; they doze away in the happy want and poverty, ever the 
best protections in Spain, or strum their guitars and sing staves 
in praise of empty purses. The better provided have to look out 
for themselves ; indeed, whenever the law is insufiicient men take 



206 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

it into their own hands, either to protect themselves or their pro- 
perty, or to administer wild justice, and obtain satisfaction for 
wrongs, which in plain Spanish is called revenge. An Irish land- 
lord arms his servants and raises walls round his " demesne" — an 
Englisli squire employs watchers and keepers to preserve his 
pheasants — so in suspected localities a Spanish hidalgo protects 
his person by hiring armed peasants ; they are called " cscopete- 
ros," people with guns — a definition which is applicable to most 
Spaniards. When out of town this custom of going armed, and 
early acquaintance with the use of the gun, is the principal rea- 
son why, on the shortest notice, bodies of men, whom the Spanish 
call soldiers, are got together ; every field furnishes the raw mate- 
rial — a man with a musket. Baggage, commissariat, pay, rations, 
uniform, and discipline, which are European rather than Oriental, 
are more likely to be found in most other armies than in those of 
Spain. These things account for the facility with which the 
Spanish nation flies so magnanimously to arms, and after bush- 
fighting and buccaneering expeditions, disappears at once after a 
reverse ; "every man to his own home," as of old in the East, 
and that, with or without proclamation. These '■ escopeteros," 
occasionally robbers themselves, live either by robbery or by 
the prevention of it ; for there is some honor among thieves ; 
" entre lobos no se come," " wolves don't eat each other," unless 
very hard up indeed. These fellows naturally endeavor to alarm 
travellers with over-exaggerated accounts of dangers, ogres and 
antres vast, in order that their services may be engaged ; their 
inventions are often believed by swallowers of camels, who note 
down as facts, these tricks upon travellers got up for the occasion, 
by people who are making long noses at them, behind their backs ; 
but these longer lies are among the accidents of long journeys, 
" en luengas vias, luengas 7nentiras." 

As we are now writing history, it may be added that great men 
like Jose Maria often granted passports. This true trooper of the 
Deloraine breed was untrammelled with the fetters of spelling. 
Although he could barely write his name, he could rubricate* 

* The kings of Spain seldom use any other royal signature, except the 
ancient Gothic rubrica, or mark. This monogram is something like a Runic 
knot. Spaniards exercise much ingenuity in these intricate flourishes, which 



TALISMANIC DEFENCES. 



as well as any other Spaniard in command, or Ferdinand VII. him- 
self. " His mark" was a protection to all who would pay him 
black mail. It was authenticated with such a portentous griffon- 
age as would have done credit to Ali Pacha. An intimate friend 
of ours, a merry gastronomic digtiitary of Seville, who was going 
to the baths of Caratraca, to recover from over indulgence in rich 
ollas and valdepenas, and had no wish, like the gouty abbot of 
Boccaccio, to be put on I'obber regimen, procured a pass from 
Jose Maria, and took one of his gang as a travelling escort, who 
sat on the coach-box, and whom he described to us as his " san- 
iito,'' his little guardian angel. 

^v iiile on the subject of this spiritual and supernatural protec- 
tion, il may be added that firm faith was placed in the wearing a 
relic, a medal of the Virgin, her rosary or scapulary. Thus the 
Duchess of Abrantes this very autumn hung the Virgeti del Pilar 
round the neck of her favorite bull-fighter, who escaped in con- 
sequence. Few Spanish soldiers go into battle without such a 
preservative in their petos, or stuff waddings, which is supposed 
to turn bullets, and to divert fire, like a lightning conductor, 
which probably it does, as so few are ever killed. In the more 
romantic days of Spain no duel or tournament could be fought 
without a declaration from the combatants, that they had no relic, 
no engano or cheat, about their persons. Our friend Jose Maria 
attributed iiis constant escapes to an image of the Virgin of Grief 
of Cordova, which never quitted his shaggy breast. Indeed, the 
native districts of the lower classes in Spain may be generally 
known by their religious ornaments. These talismanic amulets 
are selected from the saint or relic most honored, and esteemed 
most efficacious, in their immediate vicinity. Thus the " Santo 
Rostro," or Holy Countenance of Jaen, is worn all over the king- 
dom of Granada, as the Cross of Caravaca is over Murcia ; the 
rosary of the Virgin is common to all Spain. The following 

they tack on to their names, as a collateral security of authenticity. It is 
said that a nihrica without a name is of more value than a name without a 
rubrica. Sancho Panza tells Don Q,uixote that his rubrica alone is worth, 
not one, but three hundred jackasses. Those who cannot write rubricate ; 
^'' No saber firmar.p — not to know how to sign one's name, — is jokingly held 
in Spain to be one of the attributes of grandeeship. 



208 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

miraculous proof of its saving virtues was frequently painted in 
the convents : — A robber was shot by a traveller and buried ; 
his comrades, some time afterwards passing by, heard his voice, 
— " this fellow in the cellarage ;" — they opened the grave and 
found him alive and unhurt, for when he was killed, he had hap- 
pened to have a rosai'y round his neck, and Saint Dominick (its 
inventor) was enabled to intercede with the Virgin in his behalf. 
This reliance on the Virgin is by no means confined to Spain, 
since the Italian banditti always wear a small silver heart of the 
Madonna, and this mixture of ferocity and superstition is one of 
the most terrific features of their character. Saint Nicholas, 
however, the English " Old Nick," is in all countries the patron 
of schoolboys, thieves, or, as Shakspeare calls them, " Saint 
Nicholas's clerks." " Keep thy neck for the hangman, for I know 
thou worshippest St. Nicholas as a man of falsehood may ;" and 
like him, Santu Diavolu, Santu Diavoluni, Holy Devil, is the ap- 
propriate saint of the Sicilian bandit. 

San Dimas, the " good thief," is a great saint in Andalucia, 
where his disciples are said to be numerous. A celebrated carv- 
ing by Montaiies, in Seville, is called ' EI Crista, del huen ladron,'' 
^^' the Christ, of the good thief;" thus making the Saviour a 
subordinate person. Spanish robbers have always been remark- 
ably good Roman Catholics. In the Rinconete y Cortadillo, the 
Lu)-ker and Cutpurse of Cervantes, whose Monipodio must have 
furnished Fagin to Boz, a box is placed before the Virgin, to 
which each robber contributes, and one remarks that he " robs 
for the service of God, and for all honest fellows." Their moun- 
tain confessors of the Friar Tuck order, animated by a pious 
love for dollars when expended in expiatory masses, consider the 
payment to them of good doubloons such a laudable restitution, 
such a sincere repentance, as to entitle the contrite culprit to 
ample absolution, plenary indulgence, and full benefit of clergy. 
Notwithstanding this, these ungrateful " good thieves" have been 
known to rob their spiritual pastors and masters, when they catch 
them on the high road. 

To return to the saving merit of these talismans. We our- 
selves suspended to our sheepskin jacket one of the silver medals 
of Santiago, which are sold to pilgrims at Compostella, and ar- 



EXECUTION OF A ROBBER. 



rived back again to Seville from the long excursion, safe and 
sound and unpillaged except by venteros and our faithful squire 
— an auspicious event, which was entirely attributed by the 
aforesaid dignitary to the intervention vouchsafed by the patron 
of the Spains to all who wore his order, which thus protects 
the bearer as a badge does a Thames waterman from a press- 
gang. 

An account of the judicial death of one of the gang of Jose 
Maria, which we witnessed, will be an appropriate conclusion to 
these remarks, and an act of justice towards our fair readers for 
this detail of breaches of the peace, and the bad company into 
which they have been introduced. Jose de Roxas, commonly 
called (for they generally have some nickname) EI Veneno, 
" Poison," from his viper-like qualities, was surprised by some 
troops : he made a desperate resistance, and when brought to the 
ground by a ball in his leg, killed the soldier .who rushed for- 
ward to secure him. He proposed when in prison to deliver up 
his comrades if his own life were guaranteed to him. The offer 
was accepted, and he was sent out with a sufficient force ; and 
such was the terror of his name, that they surrendered them- 
selves, not however to him, and were pardoned. Veneno was 
then tried for his previous offences, found guilty, and condemned : 
he pleaded that he had indirectly accomplished the object for 
which his life was promised him, but in vain ; for such trials in 
Spain are a mere form, to give an air of legality to a predeter- 
mined sentence : — the authorities adhered to the killing letter of 
their agreement, and 

" Kept the word of promise to the ear, 
But broke it to the hope." 

As Veneno was without friends or money, wherewith Gines Pas- 
samonle anointed the palm of justice and got free, the sentence 
was of course ordered to be carried into effect. The courts of 
law and the prisons of Seville are situated near the Pla^a San 
Francisco, which has always been the site of public executions. 
On the day previous nothing indicates the scene which will take 
place on the following morning ; everything connected with this 
ceremony of death is viewed with horror bv Spaniards, not from 



210 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

that abstract abhorrence of shedding blood which among other na- 
tions induces the lower orders to- detest the completer of judicial 
sentences, as the smaller feathered tribes do the larger birds of 
prey, but from ancient Oriental prejudices of pollution, and be- 
cause all actually employed in the operation are accounted infa- 
mous, and lose their caste, and purity of blood. Even the gloomy 
scaffolding is erected in the night by unseen, unknown hands, and 
rises from the earth like a fungus work of darkness, to make the 
day hideous and shock the awakening eye of Seville. When 
the criminal is of noble blood the platform, which in ordinary 
cases is composed of mere carpenter's work, is covered with black 
baize. The operation of hanging, among so unmechanical a 
people, with no improved patent invisible drop, used to be con- 
ducted in a cruel and clumsy manner. The wretched culprits 
were dragged up the steps of the ladder by the executioner, who 
then mounted on their shoulders and threw himself off with his 
victims, and, while both swung backwards and forwards in the 
ai)', was busied, with spider-like fingers, in fumbling about the 
neck of the sufferers, until being satisfied that life was extinct he 
let himself down to the ground by the bodies. Execution by 
hanging was, however, graciously abolished by Ferdinand VII., 
the beloved ; this father of his people determined that the future 
death for civil offences should be strangulation, — a mode of re- 
moving to a better world those of his children who deserved it 
which is certainly more in accordance with the Oriental bow- 
string. 

Veneno was placed, as is usual, the day befoi*e his ex«cution, 
" en capilla" in a chapel or cell set apart for the condemned, 
where the last comforts of religion are administered. This was 
a small room in the prison, and the most melancholy iu that dwell- 
ing of woe, for such indeed, as Cervantes from sad experience 
knew, and described a Spanish prison to be, it still is. An iron 
grating formed the partition of the corridor, which led to the 
chamber. This passage was crowded with members of a chari- 
table brotherhood, who were collecting alms from the visitors, to 
be expended in masses for the eternal repose of the soul of the 
criminal. There were groups of officers, and of portly Francis- 
can friars smoking their cigars and looking carefully from time 



EXECUTION OF A ROBBER. 211 

to time into the amount of the contributions, which were to benefit 
their bodies, quite as much as the soul of the condemned. The 
levity of those assembled without formed, meantime, a heartless 
contrast with the gloom and horror of tlje melancholy interior. 
A small door opened into the cell, over which might well be in- 
scribed the awful words of Dante — 

" Lasciate ogni speranza, Toi cL' entrate !" 

At the head of this room was placed a table, with a crucifix, an 
image of the Virgin, and two wax tapers, near which stood a si- 
lent sentinel with a drawn sword ; another soldier was stationed 
at the door, with a fixed bayonet. In a corner of this darkened 
apartment was the pallet of Veneno ; he was lying curled up like 
a snake, with a striped coverlet (the Spanish manta) drawn closely 
over his mouth, leaving visible only a head of matted locks, a 
glistening dark eye, rolling restlessly out of the white socket. 
On being approached he sprung up and seated himself on a stool : 
he was almost naked ; a chaplet of beads hung across his exposed 
breast, and contrasted with the iron chains around his limbs : — 
Superstition had riveted her fetters at his birth, and the Law her 
manacles at his death. The expression of his face, though low 
and vulgar, was one which once seen is not easily forgotten, — a 
slouching look of more than ordinary guilt : his sallow complex- 
ion appeared more cadaverous in the uncertain light, and was 
heightened by a black, unshorn beard, growing vigorously on a 
half dead countenance. He appeared to be reconciled to his fate, 
and repeated a few sentences, the teaching of the monks, as by 
rote : his situation was probably more painful to the spectator than 
to himself — an indifference to death, arising rather from an igno- 
rance of its dreadful import, than from high moral courage : 
he was the Bernardine of Shakspeare. " a man that apprehends 
death no more dreadfully than a drunken sleep, careless, reck- 
less, and fearless of what 's past, present, and to come, insensible 
of mortality, and desperately mortal." 

Next morning the triple tiers of the old balconies, roofs, and 
whole area of the Moorish and most picturesque square were 
crowded by the lower orders ; the men wrapped up in their 
cloaks — (it was a December morning) — the women in their man- 



912 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

tillas, many with young children in their arms, brought in the 
beginning of life to witness its conclusion. The better classes 
not only absent themselves from these executions, but avoid any 
allusion to the subject as derogatory to European civilization ; 
the humbler ranks, who hold the conventions of society very 
cheap, give loose to their morbid curiosity to behold scenes of 
terror, which operates powerfully on the women, who seem im- 
pelled irresistibly to witness sights the most repugnant to their 
nature, and to behold sufferings which they would most dread to 
undergo; they, like children, are the great lovers of the horrible, 
whether in a tale or in dreadful reality ; to the men it was as a 
tragedy, where the last scene is death — death which rivets the at- 
tention of all, who sooner or later must enact the same sad part.* 
They desire to see how the criminal will conduct himself; they 
sympathize with him if he displays coolness and courage, and 
despise him on the least symptom of unmanliness. An open 
square was then formed about the scaffold by lines of soldiers 
drawn up, into which the officers and clergy were admitted. As 
the fatal hour drew nigh, the increasing impatience of the multi- 
tude began to vent itself in complaints of how slowly the time 
passed — that time of no value to them, but of such precious im- 
port to him, whose very moments were numbered. 

When at length the cathedral clock tolled out the fatal hour, a 
universal stir of tiptoe expectation took place, a pushing forward 
to get the best situations. Still ten minutes had to elapse, for the 
clock of the tribunal is purposely set so much later than that of 
the cathedral, in order to afford the utmost possible chance of a 
reprieve. When that clock too had rung out its knell, all eyes 
were turned to the prison-door, from whence the miserable man 
came forth, attended by some Franciscans. He had chosen that 
order to assist at his dying moments, a privilege always left to 
the criminal. He was clad in a coarse yellow baize gown, the 
color which denotes the crime of murder, and is appropriated al- 
ways to Judas Iscariot in Spanish paintings. He walked slowly 
on his last journey, half supported by those around him, and 
stopping often, ostensibly to kiss the crucifix held before him by 

* '• Chacun fuit t le voir naitre, chacun court a le voir mourir !" — MoU' 
taigne. 



EXECUTION OF A ROBBER. 213 

a friar, but rather to prolong existence — sweet life ! — even yet a 
moment. When he arrived reluctantly at the scaffold, he knelt 
dovi^n on the steps, the threshold of death ; — the reverend attend- 
ants covered him over with their blue robes — his dying confes- 
sion was listened to unseen. He then mounted the platform at- 
tended by a single friar; addressed the crowd in broken sen- 
tences, with a gasping breath — told them that he died repentant, 
that he was justly punished, and that he forgave his executioner. 
" Mi delito me mata, y no ese ho7nhre," — my offence puts me to 
death, and not this fellow ; as " Ese hombre" is a contemptuous 
expression, and implies insult, the ruling feeling of the Spaniard 
was displayed in death against the degraded functionary. The 
criminal then exclaimed, " Viva la fe ! viva la religion ! viva el 
rey ! viva el nombre de Jesus /^^ All of which met no echo from 
those who heard him. His dying cry was " Viva la Virgin San- 
tisima /" at these words the devotion to the goddess of Spain 
burst forth in one general acclamation, " Viva la Santisima !'' 
So strong is their feeling towards the Virgin, and so lukewarm 
their comparative indifference towards their king, their faith, and 
their Saviour ! Meanwhile the executioner, a young man dressed 
in black, was busied in the preparations for death. The fatal 
instrument is simple : the culprit is placed on a rude seat ; his 
back leans against a strong upright post, to which an iron collar 
is attached, enclosing his neck, and so contrived as to be drawn 
home to the post by turning a powerful screw. The executioner 
bound so tightly the naked legs and arms of Veneno, that they 
swelled and became black — a precaution not unwise, as the fa- 
ther of this functionary had been killed in the act of executing a 
struggling criminal. The priest who attended Veneno was a 
bloated, corpulent man, more occupied in shading the sun from 
his own face, than in his ghostly office ; the robber sat with a 
writhing look of agony, grinding his clenched teeth. When all 
was ready, the executioner took the lever of the screw in both 
hands, gathered himself up for a strong muscular effort, and, at 
the moment of a preconcerted signal, drew the iron collar tight, 
while an attendant flung a black handkerchief over the face — a 
convulsive pressure of the hands and a heaving of the chest were 
the only visible signs of the passing of the robber's spirit. After 



214 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

a pause of a few moments, ihe executioner cautiously peeped 
under the handlierchief, and after leaving given another turn to 
the screw, lifted it off, folded it up, carefully put it into his pocket, 
and then proceeded to light a cigar 

— " with that air of satisfaction, 

Which good men wear who've done a virtuous action." 

The face of the dead man was slightly convulsed, the piouth 
open, the eye-balls turned into their sockets from the wrench. 
A black bier, with two lanterns fixed on staves, and a crucifix, 
was now set down before the scaffold — also a small table and 
a dish, into which alms were again collected, to be paid to the 
priests who sang masses for his soul. The mob having discussed 
his crimes, abused the authorities and judges, and criticised the 
manner of the new executioner (it was his maiden effort), began 
slowly to disperse, to the great content of the neighboring silver- 
smiths, who ventured to open their closed shutters, having hith- 
erto placed more confidence in bolts and bars, than in the moral 
example presented to the spectators. The body remained on the 
scaffold till the afternoon ; it was then thrown into a scavenger's 
cart, and led by the ^^ pregonero,'^ the common crier, beyond the 
jurisdiction of the city, to a square platform called " La mesa del 
B.ey" the king's table, where the bodies of the executed are 
quartered and cut up — " a pretty dish to set before a king." 
Here the carcase was hewed and hacked into pieces by the 
bungling executioner and his attendants, with that inimitable de- 
fiance of anatomy for which they and Spanish surgeons are 
equally renowned — 

" Le gambe di lui gettaron in una fossa ; 
II Diavol ebbe I'alma, i lupi Fossa." 

" The legs of the robber were thrown in a hole, 
The wolves got his bones, the devil his soul." 



THE SPANISH DOCTOR. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

The Spanish Doctor : his Social Position — Medical Abuses — Hospitals — 
Medical Education — Lunatic Asylums — Foundling Hospital of Seville — 
Medical Pretensions — Dissection — Family Physician — Consultations~- 
Medical Costume — Prescriptions — Druggists — Snake Broth — Salve for 
Knife-cuts. 

The transition from the Spanish ventero to the ladron was easy, 
nor is that from the robbers to the doctors of Spain difficult ; the 
former at least offer a polite alternative, they demand " your 
money or your life," while the latter in most cases takes both; 
yet these able practitioners, from being less picturesque in cos- 
tume, and more undramatic in operations, do not enjoy so bril- 
liant a European reputation as the bandits. Again, while our 
critical monitors cry thieves on every road of the Peninsula, no 
friendly warning is given against the Sangrado, whose aspect is 
more deadly than the coup de soleil of a Castilian sun : woe waits 
the wayfarer who falls into his hands ; the patient cannot be too 
quick in ordering the measure to be taken of his coffin, or, as 
Spaniards say, of his tombstone, which last article is shadowed 
out by the first feeling of the invalid's pulse — tomar el pulso, es 
prognosticar al enfermo la loza. It was probably from a knowl- 
edge of this contingent remainder, that Monsieur Orfila went, or 
was sent, from Paris to Madrid, about the time of the Montpea- 
sier marriage with the Infanta, in the hopes of rescuing her 
elder and reigning sister, the " innocent" Isabel, from the fatal 
native lancets — a well-meant interference of the foreigner, by 
the way, which the Spanish faculty resented and rejected to a 
man ; nor were the guarded suggestions of this eminent ioxicolo- 
giste, or investigator of poisons, with regard to the administration 
of medicines and dispensaries, received so thankfully as they de- 
served. 

However magnificently endowed in former times were the hos- 



216 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

pitals and almshouses of Spain, the provision now made for poor 
and ailing humanity is very inadequate. The revenues were 
first embezzled by the managers, and since have almost been 
swept away. Trustees for pious and charitable uses are de- 
fenceless against armed avarice and appropriation in office : and 
being corporate bodies, they want the sacredness o? private inter- 
ests, which every one is anxious to defend. Hence the greedy 
minion Godoy began the spoliation, by seizing the funds, and 
giving in lieu government securities, which of course turned out 
to be worthless. Then ensued the French invasion,-and the con- 
fiscation of military despots. Civil war has done the rest ; and 
now that the convents are suppressed, the deficiency is more evi- 
dent, for in the remoter country districts the monks bestowed re- 
lief to the poor, and provided medicines for the sick. With few 
exceptions, the hospitals, the Casas de Misericordia, or houses 
for the destitute, are far from being well conducted in Spain, 
while those destined for lunatics, and for exposed children, not- 
withstanding recent improvements, do little credit to science and 
humanity. 

The base, brutal, and bloody Sangrados of Spain have long 
been the butts of foreign and domestic novelists, who spoke many 
a true word in their jests. The common expression of the peo- 
ple in regard to the busy mortality of their patients, is, that they 
die like bugs, mueren como chinches. This recklessness of life, 
this inattention to human suffering, and backwardness in curative 
science, is very Oriental ; for, however science may have set 
westward from the East, the arts of medicine and surgery have 
not. There, as in Spain, they have long been subordinate, and 
the professors held to be of a low caste — a fatal bar in the Penin- 
sula, where the point of personal honor is so nice, and men will 
die rather than submit to conventional degradations. The sur- 
geon of the Spanish Moors was frequently a despised and de- 
tested Jew, which would create a traditionary loathing of the 
calling. The physician was of somewhat a higher caste ; but 
he, like the botanist and chemist, was rather to be met with 
among the Infidels than the Christians. Thus Sancho the Fat 
was obliged to go in person to Cordova in search of good advice. 
And still in Spain, as in the East, all whose profession is to put 



THE SPANISH DOCTOR. 



Jiving creatures to death, are socially almost excommunicated j 
the butcher, bull-fighter, and public executioner for example. 
Here the soldier who sabres, takes the highest rank, and he who 
cures, the lowest ; here the M.D.'s, whom the infallible Pope 
consults and the autocrat king obeys, are admitted only into the 
sick rooms of good company, which, whfen in rude health, shuts 
on them the door of their saloons ; but the excluded take their 
revenge on those who morally cut them, and all Spaniards are 
very dangerous with the knife, and more particularly if surgeons. 
Madrid is indeed the court of death, and the necrology of the 
Escorial furnishes the surest evidence of this fact in the prema- 
ture decease of royalty, which may be expected to have the best 
advice and aid, both medical and theologico-therapeutical, that 
the capital can afford ; but brief is the royal span, especially in 
the case of females and infantes, and the result is undeniable in 
these statistics of death ; the cause lies between the climate and 
the doctor, who, as they aid the other,, may fairly be left to settle 
the question of relative excellence between each other. 

The Spanish medical man is shunned, not only from ancient 
prejudices, and because he is dangerous like a rattlesnake, but 
from jealousies that churchmen entertain against a rival profes- 
sion, which, if well-received, might come in for some share of the 
legacies and power-conferring secrets, which are obtained easily 
at deathbeds, when mind and body are deprived of strength. 
Again, a Spanish surgeon and a Spanish confessor take different 
views of a patient ; one only wishes, or ought to wish, to preserve 
him in this world, and the other in the next, — neither probably in 
their hearts having much opinion of the remedies adopted by each 
other: the spiritual practice changes not, for novelty itself, a her- 
esy in religion, is not favorably beheld in any thing else. Thus 
the universities, governed by ecclesiastics, persuaded the poor 
bigot Philip III. to pass a law prohibiting the study of any new 
system of medicine, and requiring Galen, Hippocrates, and Avi- 
cenna. Dons and men for whom the sun still continued to stand 
still, scout the exact sciences and experimental philosophy as dan- 
gerous innovations, which, they said, made every medical man a 
Tiberius, who, because he was fond of mathematics where strict 
demonstration is necessary, was rather negligent in his religious 

FART II. 1 1 



21S THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

respect for the gods and goddesses of the Pantheon ; and so, ir. 
1830, they scared the timid Ferdinand VII. (whose resemblance 
to Tiberius had nothing to do with Euclid) by telling him that the 
schools of medicine created materialists, heretics, citizen-kings, 
chartists, barricadoers, and revolutionists. Thereupon the beloved 
monarch shut up the lecture rooms forthwith, opening, it is true, 
by way of compensation, a tauromachian university ; — men in- 
deed might be mangled, but bulls were to be mercifully put out 
of their misery, secundem artem, and with the honors of sci- 
ence. 

This low social position is very classical : the physicians of 
Rome, chiefly liierti, freed slaves, were only made citizens by 
Ccesar, who wished to coiiciliaLe these ministers of the fatal .sisters 
when the capital was wanting in population after extreme emigra- 
tions — an act of favor which may cut two ways ; thus Adrian VI. 
(tutor to the Spanish Charles V.) approved of there being 500 
medical practitioners in the Eternal City, because otherwise " the 
multitude of living beings would eat each other up." However, 
when his turn came to be diminished, the grateful people sere- 
naded his surgeon, as the " deliverer of the country." In our 
days, there was only one medical man admitted by the Seville 
sangre su, the best or noblest set (whose blood is held to be blue, 
of which more anon) when in rude and antiphlebotomical health ; 
and every stranger was informed apologetically by the exclusive 
Amphitryons that the M. D. was de casa conocida, or born of a 
good family ; thus his social introduction was owing to personal, 
not professional qualifications. And while adventurers of every 
kind are betitled, the most prodigal dispenser of Spanish honors 
never dreams of making his doctor even a iitulado, a rank some- 
Avhat higher than a pair de France, and lower than a medical 
baronetage in England. This aristocratical ban has confined 
doctors much to each other's society, which, as they never take 
each other's physic, is neither unpleasant nor dangerous. At 
Seville the medical tertulia, club or meeting, was appropriately 
held at the apothecary's shop of Campelos, and a sable junta or 
consultation it was, of birds of bad omen, who croaked over the 
general health with which the city was afflicted, praying, like 
Sangrado in ' Gil Bias,' that by the blessing of Providence much 



MEDICAL PRACTICE. 



sickness might speedily ensue. The crowded or deserted state of 
this rookery was the surest evidence of the hygeian condition of 
the fair capital of Bsetica, and one which, when we lived there, 
we have often anxiously inspected ; for, whatever be the pleasant- 
ries of those in insolent health, when sickness brings in the 
doctor, all joking is at an end ; then he is made much of even in 
Spain, from a choice of evils, and for fear of the confes.sor and 
undertaker. 

The poor in no countries have much predilection for the hospi- 
tal ; and in Spain, in addition to pride, which everywhere keeps 
many silly sick out of admirably-conducted asylums, here a well- 
grounded fear deters the patient, who prefers to die a natural 
death. Again, from their being poor, the necessity of their living 
at all, is less evident to the managers than to the sufferers ; as, 
say the Malthusians, there is no place vacant at Nature's tahle 
d'hote to those who cannot pay, so bed and board are not pressed 
on Spanish applicants, by the hospital committee ; an admitted pa- 
tient's death saves trouble and expense, neither of which are pop- 
ular in a land where cash is scarce, and a love for hard work not 
prevalent, where a sound man is worth little, and a sick one still 
less ; nor is every doctor always popular for working cures, as 
could be exemplified in sundry cases of Spanish wives and heirs 
in general ; therefore in the hospitals of the Peninsula, if only half 
die, it is thought great luck : the dead, moreover, tell no tales, and 
the living sing praises for their miraculous escape. El medico 
lleva la plata, pero Dios es que sana ! — God works the cure, the 
doctor sacks the fee ! Meanwhile the sextons are busy and merry, 
as those in Hamlet, and as indeed all gravediggers are, when they 
have a job on hand that will be paid for ; deeply do they dig into 
the silent earth, that bourn from whence no travellers return to 
blab. They sing and jest, while dust is heaped on dust, and the 
corpus delicti covered, and with it the blunders of the medico j thus 
all parties, the deceased excepted, are well satisfied ; the man with 
the lancet is content that disagreeable evidence should be put out 
of sight, the fellow-laborer with the spade is thankful that con- 
stant means of living should be afforded to him ; and when the 
funeral is over, both carry out the proverbial practice of Peninsu- 



220 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

lar survivors : Los muertos en la huesa, y los vivos a la mesuy the 
dead in their grave, the quick to their dinner. 

But at no period were Spaniards careful even of their own 
lives, and much less of those of others, being a people of untender 
bowels. Familiarity with pain blunts much of the finer feelings 
of persons employed even in our hospitals, for those who live by 
the dead have only an undertaker's sympathy for the living, and 
are as dull to the poetry of innocent health, as Mr. Giblet is to a 
sportive house-fed lamb. Matters are not improved in Spain, 
where the wounds, blood, and slaughterings of the pastime bull- 
fight, the mueran or death mob-cries, and pasele por las armas, the 
shoot him on the spot, the Draco and Durango decrees, and prac- 
tices of all in power, educate all sexes to indifference to blood; 
thus the fatal knife-stab or sui'geon's cut are viewed as cosas de 
Espana and things of course. The philosophy of the general in- 
difference to life in Spain, which almost amounts to Oriental fa- 
talism, in the number of executions and general resignation to 
bloodshed, arises partly from life among the many being at best 
but a struggle for existence ; thus in setting it in the cast, the 
player only stakes coppers, and when one is removed, there is 
somewhat less difficulty for survivors ; hence every one is for him- 
self and for to-day ; apres raoi le deluge, el ultimo mono se ahoga, 
the last monkey is drowned, or as we say, the devil takes the hind- 
most. 

The neglect of well-supported, well-regulated hospitals, has re- 
coiled on the Spaniards. The rising profession are deprived of 
the advantages of walking them, and thus beholding every nice 
difficulty solved by experienced masters. Recently some efforts 
have been made in large towns, especially on the coasts, to intro- 
duce reforms and foreign ameliorations ; but official jobbing and 
ignorant routine are still among the diseases that are not cured in 
Spain. In 1811, when the English army was at Cadiz, a physi- 
cian, named Villarino, urged by some of our indignant surgeons, 
brought the disgraceful condition of Spanish hospitals before the 
Cortes. A commission was appointed, and their sad report, still 
extant, details how the funds, food, wine, &c., destined for the pa- 
tients were consumed by the managers and their subalterns. The 
results were such as might be expected ; the authorities held to- 



MEDICAL ABUSES. 221 



gethei, and persecuted Villarino as a revoludonario, or reformer, 
and succeeded in disgracing him. The superintendent of this 
establishment was the notorious Lozano de Torres, who starved 
the English army after Talavera, and was " a thief and a liar," 
in the words of the Duke. The Regency, after this very exposure 
of his hospital, promoted him to the civil government of old Cas- 
tile; and Ferdinand VII., in 1817, made him Minister of Justice. 
As buildings, the hospitals are generally very large ; but the space 
is as thinly tenanted as the unpeopled wastes of Spain. In Eng- 
land wards are wanting for patients — in Spain, patients for wards. 
The names of some of the greatest hospitals are happily chosen ; 
that of Seville, for inslance, is called La Sangre, the blood, or 
Las Cinco Llagas, the five bleeding wounds of our Saviour, which 
are sculptured over the portal like bunches of grapes. Blood is 
an ominous name for this house and home of Sangrado, where 
the lancet, like the Spanish knife, gives no quarter. In instru- 
ments of life and death, this establishment resembles a Spanish 
arsenal, being wanting in everything at the critical moment ; its 
dispensary, as in the shop of Shakspeare's apothecary, presented 
a beggarly account of empty pill-boxes, while as to a visiting 
Brodie, the part of that Hamlet was left out. The grand hospital 
at Madrid is called el general, the General, and the medical as- 
sistance is akin to the military co-operation of such Spanish 
generals as Lapeiia and Venegas, who in the moment of need 
left Graham at Barrosa, and the Duke at Talavera, without a 
shadow of aid. There is nothing new in this, if the old proverb 
tells truth, socorros de Espana, o tarde o nunca ; Spanish suc- 
cors arrive late or never. In cases of battle, war, and sudden 
death as in peace, the professional men, military or medical, are 
apt to assist in the meaning of the French word assister, which 
signifies to be present without taking any part in what is going 
on. And this applies, where knocks on the head are concerned, 
not to the medical men only, but to the universal Spanish nation ; 
when any one is stabbed in the streets, he will infallibly bleed 
to death, unless the authorities arrive in time to pick him up, 
and to bind up his wounds : every one else — Englishmen excepted, 
we describe things witnessed — passes on the other side ; not from 
any fear at the sight of blood, nor abhorrence of murder, but 



222 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

from the dread which every Spaniard feels at the very idea of 
getting entangled in the meshes of La Justicia, whose ministers 
lay hold of all who interfere or are near the body as principals 
or witnesses, and Spanish justice, if once it gets a man into its 
fangs, never lets him go until drained of his last farthing. 

The schools and hospitals, especially in the inland remote cities, 
are very deficient in all improved mechanical appliances and mo- 
dern discoveries, and the few which are to be met with are mostly 
of French and second-rate manufacture. It is much the same with 
their medical treatises and technical works ; all is a copy, and a bad 
one ; it has been found to be much easier to translate and borrow, 
than to invent ; therefore, as in modern art and literature, there 
is little originality in Spanish medicine. It is chiefly a veneering 
of other men's ideas, or an adaptation of ancient and Moorish 
science. Most of their terms of medicinal art, as well as of drugs, 
jalea, elixir, jarave, rob, sorbete, julepe, &c., are purely Arabic, 
and indicate the sources from whence the knowledge was obtained, 
for there is no surer historical test than language of the origin 
from whence the knowledge of the science was derived with its 
phraseology ; and whenever Spaniards depart from the daring ways 
of their ancestors, it is to adopt a timid French system. The few 
additions to their medical libraries are translations from their 
neighbors, just as the scanty materia medica in their apotheca- 
ries' shops is rendered more dangerous and ineffective by quack 
nostrums from Paris. It is a serious misfortune to sanative 
science in the Peninsula, that all that is known of the works of 
thoughtful, careful Germany, of practical, decided England, is 
passed through the unfair, inaccurate alembic of French transla- 
tion ; thus the original becomes doubly deteriorated, and the 
sacred cosmopolitan cause of truth and fact is too often sacrificed 
to the Gallic mania of suppressing both, for the honor of their 
own country. Can it be wondered, therefore, that the acquaint- 
ance 5f the Spanish faculty with modern works, inventions, and 
operations is very limited, or that their text-books and authorities 
should too often be still Galen, Celsus, Hippocrates, and Boer- 
haave ? The names of Hunter, Harvey, and Astley Cooper, are 
scarcely more known amona; their M.D.'s than the last discove- 



LUNATIC ASYLUMS. 



ries of Herschel ; the light of such distant planets has not had 
time to arrive. 

To this clay the Colegio de San Carlos, or the College of 
Surgeons of Madrid, relies much on teaching the obstetric art 
by means of wax preparations ; but learning a trade on paper is 
not confined in Spain to medical students ; the great naval 
school at Seville is dedicated to San Telmo, vi^ho, uniting in 
himself the attributes of the ancient Castor and Pollux, appears 
in storms at the mast-head in the form of lights to rescue seamen. 
Hence, whenever it comes on to blow, the pious crews of Spanish 
crafts fall on their knees, and depend on this marine Hercules, 
instead of taking in sail, and putting the helm up. Our tars, 
who love the sea propter se, for better for Mftorse, having no San 
Telmo to help them in foul weather (although the somewhat 
irreverent gunner of the Victory did call him of Trafalgar 
Saint Nelson), go to work and perform the miracle themselves 
— aide toi, et le del faidera. In our time, the middies in this 
college were taught navigation in a room, from a small model of 
a three-decker placed on a large table ;' and thus at least they were 
not exposed to sea-sickness. The Infant Antonio, Lord High 
Admiral of Spain, was walking in the Retire gardens near the 
pond, when it was proposed to cross in a boat; he declined, 
saying, " Since I sailed from Naples to Spain I have never ven- 
tured on water." But, in this and some other matters, things 
are managed differently on the Thames and the Bsetis. Thus, 
near Greenwich Hospital, a floating frigate, large as life, is the 
school of young chips of old blocks, who every day behold in the 
veterans of Cape St. Vincent and Trafalgar living examples of 
having " done their duty." The evidence of former victories 
thus becomes a guarantee for the realization of their young hopes, 
and the future is assured by the past. 

Next to the barracks, prisons, arsenals, and fortresses of Spain, 
the establishments for suffering mortality are the least worth 
seeing, and are the most to be avoided by wise travellers, who can 
indulge in much better specimens at home. This assertion will 
be better understood by a sketch or two taken on the spot a few 
years ago. The so-called asylums for lunatics are termed in 
Spanish hospitales de locos, a word derived from the Arabic, 



224 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

locao, mad ; they, like the cognate Morostans (^w^oj) of Cairo, 
were generally so mismanaged, that the directors appeared to be 
only desirous of obtaining admission themselves. Insanity seemed 
to derange both the intellects of the patients and to harden the 
bowels of their attendants, while the usual misappropriation of 
the scanty funds produced a truly re-ckless, makeshift, wretched 
result. There was no attempt at classification, which indeed is 
no thing of Spain. The jnjnates were crowded together, — the 
monomaniac, the insane, the raving road, — in one confusion of 
dirt and misery, where they howled at each other, chained like 
wild beasts, and were treated even worse than criminals, for the 
passions of the most outrageous were infuriated by the savage 
lash. There was net even a curtain to conceal the sad necessi- 
ties of these human beings, then reduced to animals: everything 
was public even unto death, whose last groan was mingled with 
the frantic laugh of the surviving spectators. In some rare cases 
the bodies of those whose minds are a void, were confined in 
solitary cells with no other companions save affliction. Of these, 
many, when first sent there* by friends and relations to be put out 
of the way, were not mad, soon indeed to become so, as solitude, 
sorrow, and the iron entered their brain. These establishments, 
which the natives ought to hide in shame, v/ere usually among 
the first lions which they forced on the stranger, and especially 
on the Englishman, since, holding our worthy countrymen, to be 
all locos, they naturally imagined that they would be quite at 
home among the inmates. 

They, in common with many others on the Continent, entertain 
a notion that all Britons bold have a bee in their bonnet ; they 
think so on many, and perhaps not always unreasonable, grounds. 
They see them preferring English ways, sayings, and doings, to 
their own, which of itself appears to a Spaniard, as to a French- 
man, to be downright insanity. Then our countrymen tell the 
truth in bulletins, use towels, and remove superfluous h^irs daily. 
And letting alone other minor exhibitions of eccentricity, are not 
the natives of England, Scotland, and Ireland guilty of three ac- 
tions, any one of which would qualify for Bedlam if the Lord 
Chancellor were to issue a writ de lunaiico inquirendo f — have 



FOUNDLING HOSPITALS. 



they not bled for Spain, in purse and person, on the battle-field, 
on the railroad, in the Stock Exchange ? — 

•' Oh tribus Antyceris caput insanabile !" 

To return, however, to Spanish madmen and their hospitals, 
the sight was a sad one, and alike disgraceful to the sane, and 
degrading to the insane native. The wild maniacs implored a 
"loan" from the foreigner, for from their own countrymen they 
had received a stone. A sort of madness is indeed seldom want- 
ing to the frantic energy and intense eagerness of all Spanish 
mendicants ; and here, albeit the reasoning faculties were gone, 
the national propensity to beg and borrow survived the wreck of 
intellect, and in fact it was and is the indestructible " common 
sense" of the country. 

There was generally some particular patient whose aggravated 
misery made him or her the especial object of cruel curiosity. 
Thus, at Toledo, in 1843, the keepers (fit wild beast terra) al- 
ways conducted strangers to the cage or den of the wife of a cele- 
brated Captain-General and first-rate fusilier of Catalonia, an 
officer superior in power to our Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. She 
was permitted to wallow in naked filth, and be made a public 
show. The Moors, at least, do not confine their harmless female 
maniacs, who wander naked through the streets, while the men 
are honored as saints, whose minds are supposed to be wandering 
in heaven. The old Iberian doctors, according to Pliny, professed 
to cure madness with the herb vettonica, and hydrophobia with 
decoction of the cynorrliodon or dog-rose-water, as being doubly, 
unpalateable to the rabid canine species. The modern Spaniards 
seemed only to desire, by ignorance and ill-usage, to darken any 
lucid interv'al into one raving uniformity. 

The foundling hospitals were, when we last examined them, 
scarcely better managed than the lunatic asylums ; they are 
called casas de esposUos, houses of the exposed — or la Cuna, the 
cradle, as if they were the cradle, not the cofiin, of miserable in- 
fants. Most large cities in Spain have one of those receptacles ; 
the principal being in the Levitical towns, and the natural fruit 
of a rich celibate clergy, both regular and secular. The Cuna 
in our time might have been defined as a place where innocents 



226 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

were massacred, and natural children deserted by their unnatural 
parents were provided for by being slowly starved. These hos- 
pitals were first founded at Milan in 787, by a priest named 
Datheus. That of Seville, which we will describe, was estab- 
lished by the clergy of the cathedral, and was managed by twelve 
directors, six lay and six clerical ; few, however, attended or con- 
tributed save in subjects. The hospital is situate in the Calle de 
la Cuna ; near an aperture left for charitable donations, is a mar- 
ble tablet with this verse from the Psalms, inscribed in Latin, 
" When my father and mother forsake me, then the Lord will 
take ine in." 

A wicket door is pierced in the wall, which opens on being 
tapped to admit the sinless children of sin ; and a nurse sits up 
at night to receive those exposed by parents who hide their guilt 
in darkness. 

" Toi que I'amour fit par un crime, 

Et que I'amour defait par un crime a son tour, 
Funeste ouvrage de I'amour, 
De I'amour funeste victime." 

Some of the babies are already dying, and are put in here in 
order to avoid the expense of a funeral ; others are almost naked, 
while a few are well supplied with linen and necessaries. These 
latter are the offspring of the better classes, by whom a tempo- 
rary concealment is desired. With such the most affecting let- 
ters are left, praying the nurses to take more than usual care of 
a child which will surely be one day reclaimed, and a mark or 
ornament is usually fastened to the infant, in order that it may 
be identified hereafter, if called for, and such were the precise 
customs in antiquity. Every particular regarding every exposed 
babe is registered in a book, which is a sad record of human 
crime and remorse. 

Those children which are afterwards reclaimed,, pay about six- 
pence for eveiy day during which the hospital has maintained 
them ; but little attention is paid to the appeals for particular 
care, or to the promise of redemption, for Spaniards seldom trust 
each other. Unless some name is sent with it, the child is bap- 
tized with one given by the matron, and it usually is that of the 



FOUNDLING HOSPITAL AT SEVILLE. 227 

saint of the day of its admission. The number was very great, 
and increased with increasing poverty, while the funds destined 
to support the charges decreased from the same cause. There is 
a certain and great influx nine months after the Holy week and 
Christmas, when the whole city, male and female, pass the night 
in kneeling to relics and images, &c. ; accordingly nine months 
afterwards, in January and November, the daily numbers often 
exceed the usual average by fifteen to twenty. 

There is always a supply of wet nurses at the Cmiu, but they 
are generally such as from bad character cannot obtain situa- 
tions in private families ; the usual allotment was three children 
to one nurse. Sometimes, when a respectable woman is looking 
out for a place as wet-nurse, and is anxious not to lose her breast 
of milk, she goes, in the meanwhile, to the Cuna, when the poor 
child who draws it off plumps up a little, 3iid then, when the 
supply is withdrawn, whhers and dies. The appointed nurses 
dole out their milk, not according toxhe wants of the infants, but 
to make it do for their number. Some few are farmed out to 
poor mothers who have lost ("fleir own babe ; they receive about 
eight shillings a month, <*nd these are the children which have 
the best chance of surviving, for no woman who has been a 
mother, and ha^ given suck, will willingly, when left alone, let 
an infant d'^- The nurses of the Cuna were familiar with starva- 
tion, ap<^ even if their milk of human kindness were not dried up 
or doured, they have not the means of satisfying their hungry 
number. The proportion who died was frightful ; it was indeed 
an organized system of infanticide. Death is a mercy to the 
child, and a saving to the establishment ; a grown-up man's life 
never was worth much in Spain, much less that of a deserted 
baby. The exposure of children to immediate death by the 
Greeks and Romans, was a trifle less cruel than the protracted 
dying in these Spanish charnel-houses. This Cuna, when last 
we visited it, was managed by an inferior priest, who, a true 
Spanish unjust steward, misapplied the funds. He became rich, 
like Gil Bias's overseer at Valladolid, by taking care of the pro- 
perty of the poor and fatherless ; his well-garnished quarters and 
portly self were in strange contrast with the conditions of his 
wasted charges. Of these, the sick and dying were separated 



228 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

from the healthy ; the former were placed in a large room, once 
the saloon of state, whose gilded roof and fair proportions mocked 
the present misery. The infants were laid in rows on dirty mat- 
tresses, along on the floor, and were left unheeded and unat- 
tended. Their large heads, shrivelled necks, hollow eyes, and 
wax wan figures, were shadowed with coming death. Called into 
existence by no wish or fault of their own, their brief span was 
run out ere begun, while their mother was far away exclaiming, 
" When I have sufficiently wept for his birth, I will weep for his 
death." 

Those who were more healthy lay paired in cradles arranged 
along a vast room ; but famine Vv^as in their cheeks, need starved 
in their eyes, and their shrill cry pained the ear on passing the 
threshold ; from their being underfed, they were restless and ever 
moaning. Their existence has indeed begun with a sob, with El 
primer sollozo de la Cuna^ the first sigh of the cradle, as Rioja 
says, but all cry when entering the world, while many leave it 
with smiles. Some, the newly exposed, just parted from their 
mother's breast, having sucked theh- last farewell, looked plump 
and rosy ; they slept soundly, blind to tL^ future, and happily un- 
conscious of their fate. 

About one in twelve survived to idle about the hospital, ill clad, 
ill fed, and worse taught. The boys were destined W the army, 
the girls for domestic service, nay, for worse, if public rc.^^ort did 
not wrong their guardian priest. They grow up to be selfish a,nd 
unatFectionate ; having never known what kindness was, their 
young hearts closed ere they opened ; " the world was not their 
friend, nor the world's law." It was on their heads that the bar- 
ber learned to shave, and on them were visited the sins of their 
parents ; having had none to care for them, none to love, they re- 
venged themselves by hating mankind. Their occupation con- 
sisted in speculating on who their parents may be, and whether 
they should some day be reclaimed and become rich. A few oc- 
casionally are adopted by benevolent and childless persons, who, 
visiting the Cuna, take a fancy to an interesting infant ; but the 
child is liable ever after to be given up to its parents, should they 
reclaim it. Townshend mentions an Oriental custom at Barce- 
lona, where the girls when marriageable were paraded in proces- 



MEDICAL PRETENSIONS. 229 

sion through the streets, and any desirous of taking a wife was at 
liberty to select his object by " throwing his handkerchief." This 
Spanish custom still prevails at Naples. 

Such was the Cuna of Seville when we last beheld it. It is 
now, as we have recently heard with much pleasure, admirably 
conducted, having been taken in charge by some benevolent ladies, 
who here as elsewhere are the best nurses and guardians of man 
in his first or second infancy, not to say of every intermediate 
stage. 

Our readers will concur in deeming that wight unfortunate 
who falls ill in Spain, as, whatever be his original complaint, it is 
too often followed by secondary and worse symptoms, in the shape 
of the native doctor; and if the judgment passed by Spaniards on 
that member of society be true, Esculapius cannot save the inva- 
lid from the crows ; the faculty even at Madrid are little in ad- 
vance of their provincial colleagues, nay, often they are more 
destructive, since, being practitioners in the only court, the hea- 
ven on earth, they are in proportion superior to the medical men 
of the rest of the world, of whom of course they can learn noth- 
ing. They are, however, at least a century behind their brother 
professors of England. An unreasonable idea of self-excellence 
arises both in nations and in individuals, from having no knowl- 
edge of the relative merits of others, and from having few grounds 
or materials whereon to raise comparison ; it exists therefore the 
strongest among the most uninformed and those who mix the least 
in the world. Thus in spite of manifold deficiencies, some of 
which will be detailed, the self-esteem of these medical men ex- 
ceeds, if possible, that of the military; both have killed their 
" ten thousands." They hold themselves to be the first sabreurs, 
physicians, and surgeons on earth, and the best qualified to wield 
the shears of the Parcas. It would be a waste of time to try to 
dispel this fatal delusion ; the well-intentioned monitor would sim- 
ply be set down as malevolent, envious, and an ass ; for they 
think their ignorance the perfection of human skill. Few for- 
eigners can ever hope to succeed among them, nor can any native 
who may have studied abroad, easily introduce a better system : 
his elder brethren would make common cause against him as an 
innovator : he would be summoned to no consultations, the most 



230 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

lucrative branch of practice, while the confessors would poison 
the ears of the women (who govern the men) with cautions against 
the danger to their souls, of having their bodies cured by a Jew, 
a heretic, or a foreigner, for the terms are almost convertible. 

Meanwhile, as in courts of justice and other matters in Spain, 
all sounds admirably on paper — the forms, regulations, and sys- 
tem are perfect in theory. Colleges of physicans and surgeons 
superintend the science, the professors are members of infinite 
learned societies, lectures are delivered, examinations are con- 
ducted, and certificates duly signed and sealed, are given. The 
young Galenista is furnished with a licence to kill, but what is 
M'anting from beginning to end, to practitioner and patient, is life. 
The medical men know, nevertheless, every aphorism of the an- 
cients by rote, and discourse as eloquently and plausibly on any 
case as do their ministers in Cortes, Both write capital theories 
and opinions extemporaneously. Their splendid language sup- 
plies words which seem to have cost thought. What is deficient 
is that clinical and best of education where the case is brought 
before the student with the corollary of skilful treatment : acci- 
dental deaths are consequently more common than cures. 

Dissection again is even now repulsive to their Oriental preju- 
dices ; the pupils learn rather by plates, diagrams, models, pre- 
parations, and skeletons, than from anatomical experiments on a 
subject. As among the ancients and in the East to this day an 
idea is prevalent among the masses in Spain, that the touch of a 
dead body pollutes ; nor is the objection raised by the clergy, that 
it savors of impiety to mutilate a form made in the image of God, 
yet exploded. It will be remembered by our medical readers, if 
we have any, that Vezalius, the father of modern anatomy, when 
at Madrid was demanded by the Inquisition from Philip II., to be 
burnt for having performed an operation. The king sent him to 
expiate his sin by a pilgrimage to the Holy Land ; he was ship- 
wrecked, and died of starvation at Zanle. 

Can it be wondered at, with such a theoretical education, that 
practice should continue to be antiquated, classical, and Oriental, 
and necessarily very limited ? In difficult cases oi compound 
fracture, gun-shot wounds, the doctors give the patient up almost 
at once, although they continue to meet and take fees, until death 



FAMILY PHYSICIAN. 



relieves him of his complicated sufferings. In chronic cases and 
slighter fractures they are less dangerous ; for as their pottering 
remedies do neither good nor harm, the struggle for life and death 
is left to nature, who sometimes works the cure. In acute dis- 
eases and inflammations they seldom succeed ; for however fond 
of the lancet, they only nibble with the case, and are scared at 
the bold decided practice of Englishmen, whereat they shrug up 
shoulders, invoke saints, and descant learnedly on the impossibil- 
ity of treating complaints under the bright sun and warm air of 
Catholic Spain, after the formulae of cold, damp, and foggy, here- 
tical England. 

Most Spaniards who can afford it have their family or bolster 
doctor, the Medico de Cahecera, and their confessor. This pair 
take care of the bodies and souls of the whole house, bring them 
gossip, share their puchero, purse, and tobacco. They rule the 
husband through the women and the nursery, nor do they allow 
their exclusive privileges to be infringed on. Etiquette is the life 
of a Spaniard, and often his death, since every one has heard (the 
Spaniards swear it is all a French lie) that Philip HI. was killed 
rather than violate a form. He was seated too near the fire, and, 
although burning, of course as king of Spain the impropriety of 
moving himself never entered his head, and when he requested 
one of his attendants to do so, none, in the absence of the proper 
officer whose duty it was to superintend the royal chair, ventured 
to take that improper liberty. In case of sudden emergencies 
among her Catholic Majesty's subjects, unless the family doctor 
be present, any other one, even if called in, generally declines 
acting until the regular Esculapius arrives. An English medi- 
cal friend of ours saved a Spaniard's life by chancing to arrive 
when the patient, in an apoplectic fit, was foaming at the mouth 
and wrestling with death ; all this time a strange doctor was sit- 
ting quietly in the next room smoking his cigar at the brasero, the 
chafing-dish, with the women of the family. Our friend instantly 
took thirty ounces from the sufferer's arm, not one of the Spanish 
party even moving from their seats. Thus Apollo preserved him ! 
The same medical gentleman happened to accidentally call on a 
person who had an inflammation in the cornea of the eye : on 
questioning he found that many consultations had been previously 



232 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

held, at which no determination was come to until at the last^ 
when sea-bathing was prescribed, with a course of asses' milk 
and Chiclana snake-broth ; our heretical friend, who lacked the 
true faith, just touched the diseased part with caustic. When 
this application was reported at the next consultation, the native 
doctors all crossed themselves with horror and amazement, which 
was increased when the patient recovered in a week. 

As a general rule at the first visit, they look as wise as possible, 
shake their heads before the women, and always magnify the com- 
plaint, which is a safe proceeding all over the world, since all 
physicians can either kill or cure the patient ; in the first event 
they get greater credit and reward, while in the other alternative, 
the disease, having been beyond the reach of art, bears the blame. 
The medicos exhibit considerable ingenuity in prolonging an ap- 
parent necessity for a continuance of their visits. A common in- 
terest induces them to pull together — a rare exception in Spain — 
and play into each other's hands. The family doctor, whenever 
appearances will in anywise justify him, becomes alarmed, and 
requires a consultation, a Junta. Whatever any Spanish Junta 
is in affairs of peace or war need not be explained ; and these are 
like the rest, they either do nothing, or what they do do, is done 
badly. At these meetings from three to seven Medicos de apela- 
cion, consulting physicians, attend, or more, according to the pa- 
tient's purse : each goes to the sick man, feels his pulse, asks him 
some questions, and then retires to the next room to consult, gen- 
erally allowing the invalid the benefit of hearing what passes. 
The Protomedico, or senior, takes the chair ; and while all are 
lighting their cigars, the family doctor opens the case, by stating 
the birth, parentage, and history of the patient, his constitution, 
the complaint, and the medicines hitherto prescribed. The senior 
next rises, and gives his opinion, often speaking for half an hour ; 
the others follow in their rotation, and then the Protomedico, like 
a judge, sums up, going over each opinion with comments : the 
usual termination is either to confirm the previous treatment, or 
make some insignificant alteration : the only certain thing is to 
appoint another consultation for the next day, for which the fees 
are heavy, each taking from three to five dollars. The consulta- 



PRESCRIPTIONS. " 233 



tion often lasts many hours, and becomes at last a chronic com- 
plaint. 

It must be said, in justice to these able practitioners, that as a 
body they are careful in their dress : external appearance, not to 
say finery in apparel, raises in the eyes of the many, a profession 
which here is of uncertain social standing. On the same princi- 
ple how careful is the costume, how brilliant are the shirt-studs 
of foreign fiddlers when in England ! The worthy Andalucian 
docior of our Spanish family, and an efficient one, as two of his 
patients now at rest could testify, never paid a visit except when 
gaily attired. So the Matador, when he enters the arena to kill 
a bull, is clad as a first-rate dandy 7najo. This attention to per- 
son arises partly from the Moro-Ibero love of ostentation, and 
partly from sound Galenic principles and a high sense of profes- 
sional duty. The ancient authorities enforced on the practitioner 
an attention to everything which created cheerful impressions, in 
order that he might arrive at the patient's pillow like a messen- 
ger of good tidings, and as a minister of health, not of death. 
They held that a grave costume might suggest unpleasant asso- 
ciations to the sick man. Raven-colored undertaker tights, and a 
funereal, cadaverous look to match, are harbingers of blue devils 
and black crape, which no man, even when in blessed health, 
contemplates with comfort ; while the effect of such a fades hip- 
pocratica staring in the face of a poor devil whose life is despaired 
of, must be fatal. 

The prescriptions of these well-dressed gentleman are some- 
what more old-fashioned than their coats. Their grand recipe in 
the first instance is to do nothing beyond taking the fee and leav- 
ing nature alone, or, as the set phrase has it, dejar a la naturaleza. 
The young, and those whose constitutions are strong and whose 
complaints are weak, do well under the healing influence of their 
kind nurse Nature, and recover through her vis medicatrix, which, 
if not obstructed by art, everywhere works wonderful cures. The 
Sangrado will say that a Spanish man or woman is more marvel- 
lously made than a clock, inasmuch as his or her machinery has 
a power in itself to regulate its own motions, and to repair acci- 
dents ; and therefore the watchmaker who is called in, need not 
be in a hurry to take it to pieces when a little oiling and cleaning 



234 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

may set all to rights. The remedies, when the proper time for 
their application arrives, are simple, and are sought for rather 
among the vegetables of the earth's surface than from the mine- 
rals in its bowels. The external recipes consist chiefly of papers 
smeared with lard, applied to the abdomen, sinapisms and mustard 
poultices to the feet, fomentations of marsh mallows or camomile 
flowers, and the aid of the curate. Tlie internal remedies, the 
tisanes, the Leches de Almendras, de Burras, decoctions of rice, 
and so forth, succeed each other in such regular order, that the 
patient scholar has nothing to do but repeat the medical passage 
in Horace's ' Satires.' In no country, however, can all the sick 
be always expected to recover even then, since " Para todo hay 
remedio, sino para la inuerte" — " There is a remedy for everything 
except death." If by chance the patient dies, the doctor and the 
disease bear the blame. Perhaps the old Iberian custom was the 
safest ; then the sick were exposed outside their doors, and the 
advice of casual passengers was asked, whose prescriptions were 
quite as likely to answer as images, relics, snake-soup, or milk of 
almonds or asses : — 

" And, doctor, do you really think 

That asses' milk I ought to drink ? 

It cured yourself, I grant, is true, 

But then 't was mother's milk to you." 

Nor, if the doctors knew how to prescribe them, are the nicer and 
most efficacious remedies, the preparations of modern chemical 
science, to be procured in any except the very largest towns ; al- 
though, as in Romeo's apothecary, " the needy" shelves are filled 
with empty boxes " to make a show." The trade of a druggist 
is anytliing but free, and the numbers are limited ; none may open 
a Botica Mdthout a strict examination and licence ; although, of 
course, this is to be had for money. None may sell any potent 
medicine, except according to the prescription of some local medi- 
cal man ; everything is a monopoly. The commonest drugs are 
often either wanting or grossly adulterated, but, as in their arse- 
nals and larders, no dispenser will admit such destitution ; hay de 
todo, I have everything, swears he, and gallantly makes up the 
prescription simply by substituting other ingredients ; and as the 
correct ones nine times out often are harmless, no great injury is 



SNAKE BROTH. 



sustained. There is nothing new in this, for Quevedo, in his Za- 
hurdas de Phdon, or Satan's Pigsties, introduces a yellow-faced 
bilious judge scourging Spanisii apothecaries for doing exactly 
the same, "Hence your shops," quoth he, for he both preached 
and flogged, " are arsenals of death, whose ministers here get 
their pills (balls rather) which banish souls from the earth;" but 
these and other things have been long done with impunity, as 
Pliny said, no physician was ever hung for murder. One advan- 
tage of general distrust in drugs and doctors is, that the great 
masses of the people think very little about them or their com- 
plaints : thus they escape all fancied and imaginary complaints, 
which, if indulged in, become chronic, and more difficult to cure 
than those afflicting the body — for who can minister to a mind 
diseased ? Again, from this want of confidence in remedies, 
very little physic at all is taken ; owing to this limited demand, 
druggists' shops are as rare in Spain as those of booksellers. No 
red, green, or blue bottles illuminate the streets at night, and there 
are more of these radiant orbs in the Fore street of the capital of 
the west of England, than in the whole capital of the Spains, albeit 
with a population six times greater. It is true that, at Madrid, 
feeding on plum-pudding, diluted with sour cider and clotted 
cream, is not habitual. 

Many of the prescriptions of Spain are local, and consist of 
some particular spring, some herb, some animal, or some partic- 
ular air, or place, or bath is recommended, which, however, is 
said to be very dangerous, unless some resident local medico be 
first consulted. One example is as good as a thousand: near 
Cadiz is Chiclana, to which the faculty invariably transport those 
patients whom they cannot cure, that is, about ninety-five in the 
hundred ; so in chronic complaints, sea-bathing there is prescribed, 
with a course of asses' milk ; and if that fail, then a broth made 
of a long, harmless snake, which abounds in the aromatic wastes 
near Barrosa. We have forgotten the generic name of this val- 
uable reptile of Esculapius, one of which our naturalists should 
take alive, and either breed from it in the Regent's Park, or at 
least investigate his comparative anatomy with those exquisite 
vipers which make, as we have shown, such delicious pork at 
Montanches. 



236 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

We cannot refrain from giving one more prescription. Many 
of the murders in Spain should rather be called homicides, being 
free from malice prepense, and caused by the readiness of the na- 
tional cuchillo, with which all the lower classes are armed like 
wasps ; it is thus always at hand, when the blood is most on fire, 
and before any refrigeratory process commences. Thus, where 
an unarmed Englishman closes his fist, a Spaniard opens his knife. 
This rascally instrument becomes fatal in jealous broils, when the 
lower classes light their anger at the torch of the Furies, and pre- 
fer using, to speaking daggers. Then the thi'ust goes home : and 
however unskilled the regular Sangrados may be in anatomy and 
handling the scalpel, the universal people know exactly how to 
manage their knife and where to plant its blow ; nor is there any 
mistake, for the wound, although not so deep as a well, nor so 
wide as a church door, " 't will serve." It is usually given after 
the treacherous fashion of their Oriental and Iberian ancestors, 
and if possible by a stab behind, and " under the fifth rib;" and 
" one blow" is enough. The blade, like the cognate Arkansas or 
Bowie knife of the Yankees, will " rip up a man right away," or 
drill him until a surgeon can see through his body. The number 
killed on great religious and other festivals, exceeds those of most 
Spanish battles in the field, although the occurrence is scai'cely 
noticed in the newspapers, so much is it a matter of course : but 
crimes which call forth a second edition and double sheet in our 
papers, are slurred over on the continent, for foreigners conceal 
what we most display. 

In minor cases of flirtation, where capital punishment is not 
called for, the offending party just gashes the cheek of the peccant 
one, and suiting the word to the action, observes, " i/a estas sena- 
lad /' " Now you are marked." This is precisely winkel quarte, 
the gash in the cheek, which is the only salve for the touchy hon- 
or of a German student, when called ein dummer junge, a stupid 
youth : — 



" Und ist die quart 
So ist der touche vergessen." 

Again, " Mira que te pego, mira que te mato," " Mind I don't 
strike thee — mind I don't kill thee j" are playful fondling expres- 



THE PARISH DOCTOR. 



sions of a Maja to a Majo. When this particular gash is only 
threatened, the Seville phrase was, " Mii-a que te pinto un jabe- 
que ;" " Take care that I don't draw you a xebeek" (the sharp 
Mediterranean felucca). " They jest at wounds who never felt 
a scar," but whenever this jabeque has really been inflicted, the 
patient, ashamed of the stigma, and not having the face to show 
himself or herself, is naturally anxious to recover a good char- 
acter and skin, which only one cosmetic, one sovereign panacea, 
can effect. This in Philip IV. 's time was cat's grease, which 
then removed such superfluous marks ; while Don Quixote con- 
sidered the oil of Apariccio to be the only cure for scratches in- 
flicted by female or feline claws. 

In process of time, as science advanced, this was superseded 
by Unto del homhre, or man's grease. Our estimable friend Don 
Nicolas Molero, a surgeon in high practice at Seville, assured 
us that previously to the French invasion he had often prepared 
this cataleptic specific, which used to be sold for its weight in gold, 
until, having been adulterated by unprincipled empirics, it fell 
into disrepute. The receipt of the balsam of Fierabras has puz- 
zled the modern commentators of Don Quixote, but the kindness 
of Don Nicolas furnished us with the ingredients of this pommade 
divine, or rather mortale. " Take a man in full health who has 
been just killed, the fresher the better, pare off the fat round the 
heart, melt it over a slow fire, clarify, and put it away in a cool 
place for use." The multitudinous church ceremonies and 
holidays in Spain, which bring crowds together, combined with 
the sun, wine, and women, have always ensured a supply of fine 
subjects. 

In Spain, as elsewhere, the doctor mania is an expensive 
amusement, which the poor and more numerous class, especially 
in rural localities, seldom indulge in. Like their mules, they 
are rarely ill, and they only take to their beds to die. They 
have, it is true, a parish doctor, to whom certain districts are ap- 
portioned ; when he in his turn succumbs to death, or is other- 
wise removed, the vacancy is usually announced in the newspa- 
pers, and a new functionary is often advertised for. His trifling 
salary is made up of payments in money and in kind, so much 
in corn and so much in cash ; the leading principle is cheapness, 



238 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

and, as in our new poor-law, that proficient is preferred, who 
will contract to do for the greatest number at the smallest charge. 
His constituents decline sometimes to place full confidence in his 
skill or alacrity : they oftener do consult the barber, the quack, 
or curandero ; for there is generally in orthodox Spain some 
charlatan wherever sword, rosary, pen, or lancet is to be wielded. 
The nostrums, charms, relics, incantations, &c., to which re- 
course is had, when not mediseval, are scarcely Christian ; but 
the spiritual pharmacopoeia of this land of Figaro is far too im- 
portant to form the tail-piece of any chapter. 



SPIRITUAL REMEDIES FOR THE BODY. 239 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

Spanisli Spiritual Remedies for the Body — Miraculous Relics— Sanative 
Oils— Philosophy of Relic Remedies — Midwifery and the Cinta of Tor- 
tosa — Bull of Crusade. 

The Reverend Dr. Fernando Castillo, an esteemed Spanish 
author and teacher, remarks, in his luminous life of St. Dome- 
nick, that Spain has been so bountifully provided by heaven with 
fine climate, soil, and extra number of saints, that his country- 
men are prone to be idle and to neglect such rare advantages. 
Certainly they may not dig and delve so deeply as is done in 
lands less favored, but the reproach of omitting to call on Hercu- 
les to do their work, or of not making the most of Santiago in 
any bodily dilemma, is a somewhat too severe reproach : nowhere 
in case of sickness have the saving virtues of relics, and the ad- 
jurations of holy monks, been moi'e implicitly relied on. 

As our learned I'eaders well know, the medical practice of the 
ancients was, as that of the Orientals still is, more peculiar than 
scientific. When disease was thought to be a divine punishment 
for sin, it was held to be wicked to resist by calling in human 
aid : thus Asa was blamed, and thus Moslems and Spaniards 
resign themselves to their fate, distrusting, and very properly, 
their medical men : " Am I a god, to kill or make alive ?" In 
the large towns, in these days of progress, some patients may 
■" suffer a recovery" according to European practice ; but in the 
country and remote villages, — and we speak from repeated per- 
sonal experience, — the good old reliance on relics and charms is 
far from exploded ; and however Dr. Sangrado and Philip III., 
whose decrees on medical matters yet adorn the Spanish statutes 
at large, deplore the introduction of perplexing chemistry, mine- 
ral therapeuticals still remain a considerable dead letter, as the 
church has transferred the efficacy of faith from spiritual to tem- 
poral concerns, and gun-shot wounds. Even Ponz, the Lysons 



240 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

of Spain, and before the Inquisition was abolished, ventured to 
express surprise at the number of images ascribed to St. Luke, 
who, says he, was not a sculptor, but a physician, whence possi- 
bly their sanative influence. The old Iberians were great her- 
balist doctors ; thus those who had a certain plant in their houses, 
were protected, as a blessed palm branch now wards off light- 
ning. They had also a drink made of a hundred herbs, and 
hence called centum herbce, a heoida de cien herias, which, like 
Morison's vegetable pills, cured every possible disease, and was 
so palatable that it was drunk at banquets, which modern physic 
is not ; moreover, according to Pliny, they cured the gout with 
flour, and relieved elongated uvulas by hanging purslain round 
the patient's throat. So now the cur as y curanderos, country cu- 
rates and quacks, furnish charms and incantations, just as Ulys- 
ses stopped his bleeding by cantation : a medal of Santiago cures 
the ague, a handkerchief of the Virgin the ophthalmia, a bone 
of San Magin answers all the purposes of mercury, a scrap of 
San Frutos supplied at Segovia the loss of common sense ; the 
Virgin of Oiia destroyed worms in royal Infantes, and her sash 
at Tortosa delivers royal Infantas. Every Murcian peasant be- 
lieves that no disease can affect him or his cattle, if he touches 
them with the cross of Caravaca, which angels brought from 
heaven and placed on a red cow. When we were last at Man- 
resa, the worthy man who showed the cave in which Loyola the 
founder of the Jesuits did penance for a year, increased an hon- 
est livelihood by the sale of its pulverized stones, that were swal- 
lowed by the faithful in cases in which an English doctor would 
prescribe Dover's or James's powders. Every province, not to 
say parish, has its own tutelar saint and relic, which are much 
honored and resorted to in their local jurisdiction, and very little 
thought of out of it, their power to cure having been apparently 
granted to them by Santiago, as a commission to commit is by 
Queen Victoria to a magistrate, whose authority does not extend 
beyond the county bounds. Zaragoza was admirably provided : 
a portion of the liver of Santa Engracia was anciently resorted 
to, in cases where blue pill would be beneficial ; the oil of her 
lamps, which never smoked the ceilings, cured lamparones, or tu- 
mors in the neck, while that which burnt before the Virgen del 



COSTUME OF CONVALESCENTS. 



Pilar, or ihe image of the Virgin which came down from heaven 
on a pillar, restored lost legs ; Cardinal de Retz mentions in his 
Memoirs having seen a man whose wooden substitutes became 
needless when the originals grew again on being rubbed with it ; 
and this portent was long celebrated by the Dean and Chapter, as 
well it deserved, by an especial holiday, for Macassar oil cannot 
do much more. This graven image is at this moment the object 
of popular adoration, and disputes even with the worship of to- 
bacco and money : countless are the mendicants, the halt, blind, 
and the lame, who cluster around her shrine, as the equally af- 
flicted ancients, with whom physicians were in vain, did around 
that of Minerva ; and it must be confessed that the cures worked 
are almost incredible. 

It may be said that all this is a raking up of remnants of 
mediaeval superstition and darkness, and it is probable that the 
medical men in Madrid and the larger towns, and especially 
those who have studied at Paris, do not place implicit confidence 
in these spiritual, nor indeed in any other purely Spanish reme- 
dies; but their tried medicinal properties are set forth at length 
in scores of Spanish county and other histories which we have 
the felicity to possess, all of which have passed the scrutinizing 
ordeal of clerical censors, and have been approved of as contain- 
ing nothing contrary to the creed of the Church of Rome or good 
customs ; nor can it be permitted that a church which professes 
to be always one, the same, and the only true one, should at its 
ov/n convenience " turn its back on itself," and deny its own 
drugs and doctrines. Nothing is set down here which was not 
perfectly notorious under the reign of Ferdinand VII. ; and 
whatever the doctors of physic or theology may now disbelieve 
in Spain, more reliance is still placed, in the rural districts, 
where foreign civilization has not penetrated, on miracles than on 
medicines. 

We have often and often seen little children in the streets 
dressed like Franciscan monks — Cupids in cowls — whose pious 
parents had vowed to clothe them in the robes of this order, pro- 
vided its sainted founder preserved their darlings_ during measles 
or dentition. Nothing was more common than that women, nay, 
ladies in good society, should appear for a year in a particular 

PART 11. 12 



242 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

religious dress, called el hahito, or with some religious badge on 
tiieir sleeves in token of similar deliverance. One instance in 
our time amused all the tertulias of Seville, who maliciously 
attributed the sudden relief which a fair high-born unmarried 
invalid experienced from an apparent dropsical complaint to causes 
not altogether supernatural ; Pues, Bon liicardo, '•' and so. Mas- 
ter Richard," would her friends of the same age and rank often 
say, " you are a stranger ; go and ask dearest Esperanza why 
she wears the Virgin of Carmel ; come back and let us know her 
story, and we will tell you the real truth." Vaya f vayaf Don 
Ricardo, usted es muy majadero, — " Go to, Master Richard, your 
Grace is an immense bore," replied the penitent, if she suspected 
the authors and motive of the embassy. 

The pious in antiquity raised temples to Minerva medica or 
Esculapius, as Spaniards do altars to Na. Senora de las Reme- 
dios, our Lady of the Remedies, and to San Roque, whose inter- 
vention renders " sound as a roach," a proverb devised in his 
honor by our ancestors, who, before the Reformation, trusted 
likewise to him ; and both thought, if Cicero is to be credited, 
that these tutelars did at least as much as the doctor. Alas I for 
the patient credulity of mankind, which still gulps down such 
medicinal quackery as all this, and which long will continue to 
do so even were one of the dead to rise from the grave, to de- 
precate the absurd treatment by which he and so many have been 
sacrificed. 

However, by way of compensation, the saving the soul has 
been made just as primary a consideration in Spain as the curing 
the body has been in England. These relics, charms, and amulets 
represent our patent medicines : and the wonder is how any one 
in Great Britain can be condemned to death in this world, or how 
any one in the Peninsula can be doomed to perdition in the next : 
possibly the panaceas are in neither case quite specific. Be that 
as it may, how numerous and well appointed are the churches 
and convents there, compared to the hospitals ; how amply pro- 
vided the relic-magazine with bones and spells, when compared 
to the anatomical museums and chemists' shops ; again, what a 
flock of holy practitioners come forth after a Spaniard has been 
stabbed, starved, or executed, not one of whom would have stir- 



PHILOSOPHY OF RELICS. 



red a step to save an army of his countrymen when alive ; and 
what coppers are now collected to pay masses to get his soul out 
of purgatory [ 

Beware, nevertheless, gentle Protestant reader, of dying in 
Spain, except in Cadiz or Malaga, where, if you are curious in 
Christian burial, there is snug lying for heretics ; and for your 
life avoid being even sick at Madrid, since if once handed over to 
the faculty make thy last testament forthwith, as if the judgment 
passed on their own doctors by Spaniards be true, Esculapius 
can not save thee from the crows : avoid the Spanish doctors 
therefore like mad dogs, and throw their physic after them. 

The masses and many in Spain have their own tutelars and 
refuges for the destitute ; the kings and queens — whom God 
preserve ! — have their own especial patroness by prerogative, in 
the image of the Virgin of Atocha at Madrid, which they and the 
rest of the royal family visit every Sunday in the year when in 
royal health. No sooner was the sovereign taken dangerously ill, 
and the court physicians at a loss what to do, as sometimes is the 
case even in Madrid, than the image used to be brought to his 
bedside ; witness the case of Philip III., thus described by Bas- 
sompierre in his dispatch : — " Les medecins en desesperent depuis 
ce matin que I'on a commence a user des remedes spirituels, et 
faire transporter au palais Vimage de N. D. de Athoche." The 
patient died three days after the image was sent for. 

Although neither priest nor physician might credit the sanative 
properties of rags and relics, they gladly called them in, for if the 
case then went wrong, how could mortal man be expected to suc- 
ceed when the supernatural remedy had failed ? All inquests in 
awkward cases are hushed up by ascribing the death to the visi- 
tation of God. Again, if a relic does not always cure it rarely 
kills, as calomel has been known to do. This interruptive 
principle, one distinct from human remedies, is admitted by the 
church in the prayers for sick persons ; and where faith is sincere, 
even relics must offer a powerful moral medical cordial, by acting 
on the imagination, and giving confidence to the patient. This 
chance is denied to the poor Protestant, nay, even to a newly-con- 
verted tractarian, for truly, to believe in the efficacy of a monkish 
bone, the lesson must have been learnt in the nursery. Their 



244 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

substitute in Lutheran lands, in partibus infidelium, is found in 
laudanum, news, and gossip ; the latter being the grand specific 
by which Sir Henry kept scores of dowagers alive, to the despair 
of jointure-paying sons, from marquises down to baronets ; and 
how real comfort is conveyed by tlie gentle v/hisper, " Your 
ladyship can not conceive what an interest his or her Royal 

Highness the takes in your ladyship's convalescence !" 

The form of the moral restorative will vary according to climate, 
creeds, manners, &c. ; it is to the substance alone that the philo- 
sophical physician will look. That chord must be touched, be it 
what it may, to which the pulse of the patient will respond ; nor, 
provided he is recovered, do the means much signify. 

One word only on Spanish midwifery. There is a dislike to 
male accoucheurs, and the midvv^ife, or comadre, generally brings 
the Spaniard into the world by the efforts of nature and the aid of 
manteca de puerco, or hogs' lard, a launching appropriate enough 
to a babe, who, if it survives to years of discretion, will assu- 
redly love bacon. The newly-born is then wrapped up, like an 
Egyptian mummy, and is carefully protected from fresh air, soap, 
and water ; an amulet is then hung round its neck to disarm the 
evil eye, or some badge of the Virgin is to ensure good luck : 
thus the young idea is taught from the cradle, what errors are to 
be avoided and what safeguards are to be clung to, lessons which 
are seldom forgotten in after-life. Without entering further into 
baby details, the scanty population of the Peninsula may in some 
measure be thus accounted for. Parturition also is frequently fa- 
tal ; in ordinary cases the midwife does very well, but when a 
difficulty arises she loses her head and patient. It is in these 
trying moments, as in the critical operations of the kitchen, that 
a male artiste is preferable. 

The Queens and Infantas of Spain have additional advantages. 
The palladium of the city of Tortosa is the cinta* or girdle, 
which the Virgin, accompanied by St. Peter and St. Paul, 
brought herself from heaven to a priest of the cathedral in 1178 ; 
an event in honor of which a mass is still said every second Sun- 
day in October. The gracious gift was declared authentic in 
* Hallarse en Cinta is the Spanish equivalent for our <■ being in the 
family way." 



^SPIRITUAL AIDS TO ACCOUCHEMENT. 245 

16] 7, by Paul V., and to justify his infallibility it works every sort 
of miracle, especially in obstetric cases ; it is also brought out to 
defend the town on all occasions of public calamity, but failed in 
the case of Suchet's attack. This girdle, more wonderful than 
the cestus of Venus, was conveyed in 1822, by Ferdinand VII. 's 
command, in solemn procession to Aranjuez, in order to facilitate 
the accouchement of the two Infantas, and as Lucina when duly 
invoked favored women in travail, so their Royal Highnesses 
were happily delivered, and one of the babes then born, is the 
husband of Isabel II. For humbler Castilian women, when preg- 
nant, a spiritual remedy was provided by the canons of Toledo, 
who took the liveliest interest in many of the cases. The grand 
entrance to the cathedral had thirteen steps, and all females who 
ascended and descended them ensured an early and easy time of 
it. No wonder therefore, when these steps were reduced to the 
number of seven, that the greatest possible opposition should have 
been made by the fair sex, married and unmarried. All these 
things of Spain are rather Oriental ; and to this day the Barbary 
Moors have a cannon at Tangiers by which a Christian ship was 
sunk, and across this their women sit to obtain an easy delivery. 
In all ages and countries where the science of midwifery has 
made small progress, it is natural that some spiritual assistance 
should be contrived for perils of such inevitable recurrence as 
childbirth. The panacea in Italy was the girdle of St. Margaret, 
which became the type of this Cinta of Tortosa, and it was re- 
sorted to by the monks in all cases of difficult parturition. It 
was supposed to benefit the sex, because when the devil wished to 
eat up St. Margaret, the Virgin bound him with her sash, and he 
became tame as a lamb. This sash brought forth sashes also, and 
in the 17th century had multiplied so exceedingly, that a travel- 
ler affirmed " if all were joined together, they would reach all 
down Cheapside ;" but the natural history of relics is too well 
known to be enlarged upon. 

Any account of Spanish doctors without a death, would be dull 
as a blank day with fox-hounds, although the medical man, differ- 
ing from the sportsman, dislikes being in at it. He, the moment 
the fatal sisters three are running into their game, slips out, and 
lea,ves the last act to the clergyman : hence the Spanish saying, 



246 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

" when the priest begins, the physician ends." It is related m 
the history of Don Quixote, that no sooner did the barber feel the 
poor knight's wrist, than he advised him to attend to his soul and 
send for his confessor ; and now, when a Castilian hidalgo takes 
to his bed, his friends pursue much the same course, nor does the 
catastrophe often differ. Lord Bacon, great in wise saws and 
instances, prayed that his death might come from Spain, because 
then it would be long on the journey ; but he was not aware that 
the gentleman in black formed an exception to the proverbial pro- 
crastination and dilatoriness of their fellow countrymen. As pa- 
tients are soon dispatched, the law* of the land subjects every 
physician to a fine of ten thousand maravedis who fails after his 
first visit to prescribe confession ; the chief object in sickness be- 
ing, as the preamble states, to cure the soul ; and so it is in Italy, 
where Gregory XVI. issued in 1845 three decrees; one to for- 
bid railroads, another to prohibit scientific meetings, and a third 
to order all medical men to cease to attend invalids who had not 
sent for the priest and communicated after the third visit. In 
Spain, the first question asked in our time of the sick man was, 
not whether he truly repented of his sins, but whether he had got 
the Bull ; and if the reply was in the negative, or his old nurse 
had omitted to send out and buy one, the last sacraments were 
denied to the dying wretch. 

One word on this wonderful Bull, that disarms death of its 
sting, and which, although few of our readers may ever have 
heard of it, plays a far more important part in the Peninsula than 
the quadruped does in the arena. Fastings are nowhere more 
strictly enjoined than here, where Lent represents the Ramadan 
of the Moslem. The denials have been mitigated to those faith- 
ful who have good appetites, by the paternal indulgence of their 
holy father at Rome, who, in consideration that it was necessary 
to keep the Spanish crusaders in fighting condition in order more 
effectually to crush the infidel, conceded to Saint Ferdinand the 
permission that his army might eat meat rations during Lent, pro- 
vided there were any, for, to the credit of Spanish commissariats 
in general, few troops fast more regularly and religiously. The 
auspicious day on which the arrival is proclaimed of this welcome 
* Recopilacion, Lib. iii. Tit. xvi. Ley 3. 



BULL OF CRUSADE. 247 

bull that, announces dinner, is celebrated by bells merry as at a 
marriage feast ; in the provincial cities mayors and corporations 
go to cathedral in what is called state, to the wonder of the mob 
and amusement of their betters at the resurrection of quiz 
coaches, the robes, maces, and obsolete trappings, by whicli these 
shadows of a former power and dignity hope to mark individual 
and collective insignificancy. A copy of this precious Bull can- 
not of course be had for nothing, and as it must be paid for, and 
in ready money, it forms one of the certain branches of public 
income. Although the proceeds ought to be expended on cru- 
sading purposes, Ferdinand VII., the Catholic King, and the only 
sovereign in possession of such a revenue, never contributed one 
mite towards the Christian Greeks in their recent struggle against 
the Turkish unbelievers. 

These bulls, or rather paper-money notes, are prepared witli 
the greatest precautions, and constituted one of the most profitable 
articles of Spanish manufacture ; a maritime war with England 
was dreaded, not so much from regard to the fasting transatlantic 
souls, as from the fear of losing, as Dr. Robertson has shown, the 
sundry millions of dollars and silver dross remitted from America, 
in exchange for these spiritual treasures. They were printed at 
Seville, at the Dominican convent, the Porta c(zli ; but Soult, 
who now it appears is turning devotee, burnt down this gate of 
heaven, with its passports, and the presses. The bulls are only 
good for the year during which they are issued ; after twelve 
months they become stale and unprofitable. There is then, says 
Blanco White, and truly, for we have often seen it, " a prodigious 
hurry to obtain new ones by all those who wish well to their 
.souls, and do not overlook the ease and comfort of their stomachs." 
A fresh one must be annually taken out, like a game-certificate, 
before Spaniards venture to sport with flesh or fowl, and they 
have reason to be thankful that it does not cost three pounds odd : 
for the sum of dos reales, or less than sixpence, man, woman, and 
child, may obtain the benefit of clergy and cookery ; but evil be- 
tides the uncertificated poacher, treadmills for life are a farce, 
perdition catches his soul. His certificate is demanded by the 
keeper of conscience when he is caught in the trap of sickness, 
and if without one, his conviction is certain ; he cannot plead 



248 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

ignorance of the law, for a postscript and condition is affixed to 
all notices of jubilees, indulgences, and other purgatorial benefits, 
which are fixed on tlie church doors ; and the language is as 
courteous and peremptory as in our popular assessed tax-paper — 
" Se ha de tener la bula :" you must have the bull ; if you ex- 
pect to derive any relief from these relaxations in purgatory, 
which all Spaniards most particularly do : hence the common 
phrase used by any one, when committing some little ^peccadillo 
in other matters, tengo mi tula para todo — I have got my bull, 
my license to do any thing. The possession of this document 
acts on all fleshly comforts like soda on indigestion, indeed, it 
neutralizes everything except heresy. As it is cheap, a Protes- 
tant resident, albeit he may not quite believe in its saving effects, 
will do well to purchase one for the sake of the peace of mind of 
his weaker brethren, for in this religion of forms and outer obser- 
vances, more horror is felt by rigid Spaniards, at seeing an Eng- 
lishman eating meat during a fast, than if he had broken all the 
ten commandments. The sums levied from the nation for these 
bulls is very large, although they are diminished before finally 
paid into the excliequer ; some of the honey gathered by so many 
bees will stick to their wings, and the place of chief commissioner 
of the Bula is a better thing than that in the Excise or Customs 
of unbelieving countries. 

To return to the dying man : if he has the bull, the host is 
brought to him with great pomp ; the procession is attended by 
crowds who bear crosses, lighted candles, bells and incense ; and 
as the chamber is thrown open to the public, the ceremony is ac- 
companied by multitudes of idlers. The spectacle is always im- 
posing, as it must be, considering that the incarnate Deity is be- 
lieved to be present. It is particularly striking on Easter Sunday, 
when the host is taken to all the sick who have been unable to 
communicate in the parish church. Then the priest walks either 
under a gorgeous canopy, or is mounted in the finest carriage in 
the town ; and while all as he passes kneel to the wafer which 
he bears, he chuckles internally at his own reality of power over 
his prostrate subjects ; the line of streets are gaily decorated as 
for the triumphal procession of a king : the windows are hung 
with velvets and tapestries, and the balconies filled with the fair 



BURIAL DRESSES. 249 



sex arrayed in their best, who shower sweet flowers down on the 
procession just at the momeni of its passage, and sweeter smiles 
during all the rest of the morning on their lovers below, whose 
more than divided adoration is engrossed by female divinities. 

To die without confession and communication is to a Spaniard 
the most poignant of calamities, as he cannot be saved while he 
is taught that there is in these acts a preserving virtue of their 
own, independent of any exertions on his part. The host is given 
when human hopes are at an end, and the heat, noise, confusion, 
and excitement, seldom fail to kill the already exhausted patient. 
Then, when life's idle business at a gasp is o'er, the body is laid 
out in a capilla ardiente, or an apartment prepared as a chapel, by 
taking out the furniture ; where the family is rich, a room on the 
ground floor is selected, in which a regular altar is dressed up, 
and rows of large candles lighted placed around the body ; the 
public is then allowed to enter, even in the case of the sovereign : 
thus we beheld Ferdinand VII. laid out dead and full dressed with 
his hat on his head, and his stick in his hand. This public ex- 
hibition is a sort of coroner's inquest ; formerly, as we have often 
seen, the body was clad in a monk's dress, with the feet naked 
and the hands clasped over the breast ; the sepulchral shadow then 
thrown over the dead and placid features by the cowl, seldom 
failed to raise a solemn undefinable feeling in the hearts of spec- 
tators, speaking, as it did, a language to the living which could 
not be misunderstood. 

The woollen dresses of the mendicant orders were by far the 
most popular, from the idea that, when old, they had become too 
saturated with the odor of sanctity ror the vile nostrils of the evil 
one ; and as a tattered dress often brought more than half-a-dozen 
new ones, the sale of these old clothes was a benefit alike to the 
pious vendor and purchaser ; those of St. Francis were preferred, 
because at his triennial visits to purgatory, he knows his own, 
and takes them back with him to heaven ; hence Milton peopled 
his shadowy limbo with wolves in sheep's clothing : — 

" who, to be sure of Paradise, 

Dying put on the robes of Dominick, 
Or in Franciscan think to pass unseen." 

Women in our time were often laid out in nuii's dresses, wear- 
12* 



250 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

ing also the scapulary of the Virgin of Carmel, which she gave 
to Simon Stock, with the assurance that none who died with it on, 
should ever suffer eternal torments. The general adoption of 
these grave fashions induced an accurate foreigner to remark, that 
no one ever died in Spain except nuns and monks. In this hot 
country, burial goes hand in hand with death, and it is absolutely 
necessary from the rapidity with which putrefaction comes on. 
The last offices are performed in somewhat an indecent manner : 
formerly the interment took place in churches, or in the yards near 
them, a custom which from hygeian reasons is now prohibited. 
Public cemeteries, which give at least 4 per cent, interest, have 
been erected outside the towns, in which long lines of catacombs 
gape greedily for those occupants who can pay for them, while 
a wide ditch is opened every day for those who cannot. In this 
campo santo, or holy field, death levels all ranks, which seems 
hard on those great families who have built and endowed chapels 
to secure a burial among their ancestors. They however raised 
no objections to the change of law, nor have ever much troubled 
themselves about the dilapidated sepulchres and crumbling effigies 
of their " grandsires cut in alabaster ;" the real opposition arose 
from the priests, who lost their fees, and thereupon assured their 
flocks, that a future resurrection was anything but certain to 
bodies committed into such new-fangled depositories. 

Be that as it may, the corpse in its slight coffin is carried out, 
followed by the male relations, and is then put into its niche 
without further form or prayer. Ladies who die soon after mar- 
riage, and before the bridal hours have danced their measure, 
are sometimes buried in tlieir wedding dresses, and covered 
with flowers, the dying injunctions of Shakspeare's Queen Cathe- 
rine : — • 

" Wlien I am dead, good wench, 
Let me be used with honor ; strew me o'er 
With maiden flowers, that all the world may know 
I was a chaste wife to my grave." 

At such funerals the coffin is opened in the catacomb, to gratify 
the indecent curiosity of the crowd ; the dress is next day dis- 
cussed all over the town, and the entierro or funeral is pronounced 
to be muy lucido or very brilliant ; but life in Spain is a jest, and 



BURIAL OF THE POFR. 251 



these things show it. The place assigned for children who die 
under seven years of age lies apart from that of the adults • their 
early death is held in Spain to be _rather a matter of congratula- 
tion than of grief, since those whom the gods love die young ; 
their epitaphs tell a mixed tale of joy and sorrow. El parvulo 
fue arrehatado a la gloria, the little one was snatched up into 
Paradise : — 

" There is beyoud the sky a, heaven of joy and love. 
And holy children, when they die, go to that world above " 

Yet nature will not be put aside, and many a mother have we 
seen, loitering alone near the graves, adorning them with roses 
and plucking up weeds which have no business to grow there ; 
the little corpses are carried to the tomb by little children of the 
same age, clad in white, and are strewed with flowers short- 
lived as themselves, sweets to the sweet. The parents return 
home yearning after the lost child — its cradle is empty, its piteous 
moan is heard no more, its playthings remain where it left them, 
and recall the cruel gap which grief cannot fill up, although it 

" Stuffs out its vacant garments with its form." 

The bodies of the lower orders, dressed in their ordinary attire 
are borne to their long home by four men, as is described by 
JVTartial ; " no useless coffins enclose their breasts," they are car- 
ried forth as was the widow's son at Nain. And often have we 
seen the frightful death-tray standing upright at the doors of the 
humble dead, with a human outline marked on the wood by the 
death-damp of a hundred previous burdens. Such bodies are 
cast into the trench like those of dogs, and often naked, as the 
survivors or sextons strip them even of their rags. Those poorer 
still, who cannot afford to pay the trifling fee, sometimes during 
the night, suspend the bodies of their children in baskets, near 
the cemetery porch. We once beheld a cloaked Spaniard pacing 
mournfully in the burial-ground of Seville, who, when the public 
trench was opened, drew from beneath the folds the body of his 
dead child, cast it in and disappeai-ed. Thus half the world lives 
without knowing how the other half dies. 

In the upper ranks the etiquette of the iuneral commences 



252 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

after the reality is over. The first necessary step is within three 
days to pay a visit of condolence to the family ; this is called 
para dar el pesame. The relations are all assembled in the best 
room, and seated on chairs placed at the head, the women at one 
end and the men at another. When a condoling lady and gentle- 
man enter, she proceeds to shake hands with all the other ladies 
one after another, and then seats herself in the next vacant chair ; 
the gentleman bows to each of the men as he passes, who rise 
and return it, a grave dumb-show of profound affliction being 
kept up by all. On reaching the chief mourners, they are ad- 
dressed by each condoler with this phrase, '■'■ Acompano a usted 
en su seniwiienio ;" "I share in the affliction of your grace :" 
the company meanwhile remain silent as an assemblageof under- 
takers. After sitting among them the proper time, each retires 
with much the same form. 

In a few days afterwards a printed letter is sent round in the 
name of all the surviving relations to announce the death to the 
friends of the family, and to beg the favor of attendance at the 
funeral service : these invitations are are all headed with a cross 
(-|-), which is called El Cristus. Before the invasion of the ene- 
my, who not only destroyed the walls of convents, but sapped reli- 
gious belief also, very many books were printed, and private let- 
ters written, with this sign prefixed. In our time sundry medical 
men at Seville always headed with it their prescriptions, the Car- 
dinal Archbishop having granted a certain number of years' re- 
lease from purgatory to all who sanctified Avith this mark their 
recipes even of senna and rhubarb. Under this cross, in the invi- 
tation, are placed the letters R. 1. P. A., which signify " Requi- 
escat in pace. Amen." At the appointed hour the mourners 
meet in the casa mortuaria, or the house of death, and proceed to-' 
gether to church. All are dressed in full black, and before the 
progress of paletots and civilization, wore no cloaks : this, as it 
rendered each man of them more uncomfortable than St. Bartho- 
lomew was without his skin, was considered an offering of genu- 
ine grief to the manes of the deceased. Uncloaking in^ Spain is, 
be it remembered, a mark of respect, and is equivalent to our 
taking off the hat. When the company arrives at church, they 
are received by the ministers, and the ceremony is very solemnly 



FUNERAL SERVICE. 



performed before a catafalque covered with a pall, which is placed 
before the altar, and is brilliantly lighted up with wax candles. 
As soon as the service is concluded, all advance and bow to the 
chief mourners, who are seated apart, and thus the tragedy con- 
cludes. Parents do not put on mourning for their children, which 
is a remnant of the patriarchal and Roman superiority of the head 
of the family, for whom, however, when dead, all the other mem- 
bers pay the most observant respect. The forms and number of 
days of mourning are most nicely laid down, and are most rigidly 
observed, even by distant relations, who refrain from all kinds of 
amusements : — 

" None bear about the mockery of woe. 
To public dances or to private show." 

We well remember the death of a kind and venerable iVIarquesa 
at Seville just before the carnival, whose chief grief at dying, was 
the thought of the namber of young ladies who would thus be de- 
prived of their balls and masquerades ; many, anxious and oblig- 
ing, were the inquiries sent after her health, and more even were 
the daily prayers offered up to the Virgin, for the prolongation of 
her precious existence, could it be only for a few weeks. 

November drear, brings in other solemnities connected with the 
dead, and in harmony with the fall of the sear and yellow leaves, 
to which Homer compares the races of mortal men. The night 
before the first of November — our All Hallow-e'en — is kept in 
Spain as a vigil or wake ; it is the fated hour of love divinations 
and mysteries ; then anxious maidens used to sit at their balco- 
nies to see the image of their destined husbands pass or not pass 
by. November the first is dedicated to the sainted dead, and No- 
vember the second to all souls ; it is termed in Spanish el dia de 
los difuntos, the day of the dead, and is most scrupulously observed 
by all who have lost during the past year some friend, some rela- 
tion — how few have not ! The dawn is ushered in by mournful 
bells, which recal the memory of those who cannot come back at 
the summons ; the cemeteries are then visited ; at Seville, long 
processions of sable-clad females, bearing chased lamps on staves, 
walk slowly round and round, chaunting melancholy dirges, re- 
turning when it gets dusk in a long line of glittering lights. The 



254 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

graves during the day are visited by those who take a sad inte- 
rest in their occupants, and lamps and flower garlands are sus- 
pended as memorials of afFection, and holy water is sprinkled, 
every drop of which puts out some of the fires of purgatory. 
These picturesque proceedings at once resemble the Eed es Se- 
gheer of modern Cairo, the feralia of the Romans, the Nefieaia 
of the Greeks : here are the flower offerings of Electra, the funes 
assensi, the funeral torches of pagan mourners, which have vainly 
been prohibited to Christian Spaniards by their early Council of 
Illiberis. In Navarre, and in the north-west of Spain, bread and 
wheat offerings called rohos are made, which are the doles or gifts 
offered for the souls' rest of the deceased by the pious of ancient 
Rome. 

As on this day the cemetery becomes the public attraction, it 
too often looks rather a joyous fashionable promenade, than a sad 
and religious performance. The levity of mere strangers and the 
mob, contrasts strangely with the sorrow of real mourners. But 
life in this world presses on death, and the gay treads on the 
heels of pathos ; the spot is crowded with mendicants, who appeal 
to the order of the day, and importune every tender recollection, 
by begging for the sake of the lamented dead. Outside the dreary 
walls all is vitality and mirth ; a noisy sale goes on of cakes, nuts, 
and sweetmeats, a crash of horses and carriages, a din and flow 
of bad language from those who look after them, which must vex 
the repose of the benditas animas, or the blessed souls in purga- 
tory, for whom otherwise all classes of Spaniards manifest the 
fondest afFection and interest. 

Such is the manner in which the body of a most orthodox 
Catholic Castilian is committed to the earth ; his soul, if it goes 
to purgatory, is considered and called blessed by anticipation, as 
the admittance into Paradise is certain, at the expiration of the 
term of penal transportation, that is, " when the foul crimes done 
in the days of nature are burnt and purged away," as the ghost 
in Hamlet says, who had not forgotten his Virgil. If the scholar 
objects to a Spanish clergyman, that the whole thing is Pagan, he 
will be told that he may go farther and fare worse. In the case 
of a true Roman Catholic, this term of hard labor may be much 
shortened, since that can be done by masses, any number of 



PURGATORY. 



which will be said, if fii'st paid for. The vicar of St. Peter holds 
the keys, which always unlock the gate to those who offer the 
golden gift by which Charon was bribed by ^neas ; thus, to a 
judicious rich man, nothing, supposing that he believes the Pope 
versus the Bible, is so easy as lo get at once into Heaven ; nor 
are the poor quite neglected, as any one may learn who will read 
the extraordinary number of days' redemption which may be ob- 
tained at every altar in Spain by the performance of the most 
trumpery routine. The only wonder is how any one of the faith- 
ful should ever fail to secure his delivery from this spiritual 
Botany Bay without going there at all, or, at least, only for the 
form's sake. It was calculated by an accurate and laborious 
German, that an active man, by spending three shillings in coach- 
hire, might obtain in an hour, by visiting different privileged 
altars during the Holy week, 29,639 years, nine months, thirteen 
days, three minutes and a half diminution of purgatorial punish- 
ment. This merciful reprieve was offered by Spanish priests in 
South America, on a grander style, on one commensurate with 
that colossal continent ; for a single mass at the San Francisco in 
Mexico, the Pope and prelates granted 32,310 years, ten days, 
and six hours' indulgence. As a means of raising money, says 
our Mexican authority, " I would not give this simple institution 
of masses for the benefit of souls, for the power of taxation pos- 
sessed by any government ; since no tax-gatherer is required ; the 
payments are enforced by the best feelings, for who would not 
pay to get a parent's or friend's soul from the fire ?" Purgatory 
has thus been a Golconda mine of gold to his Holiness, as even 
the poorest have a chance, since charitable persons can deliver 
blank souls by taking out a habeas animam writ, that is, by pay- 
ing the priest for a mass. The especial days are marked in the 
almanac, and known to every waiter at the inn ; moreover, notice 
is put on the church door, Hoy se saca anima, " this day you can 
get out a soul." They are generally left in their warm quarters 
in winter, and taken out in the spring. 

Alas for poor Protestants, who, by non-payment of St. Peter's 
pence, have added an additional act of heresy, and the worst of 
all, the one which Rome never pardons. These defaulters can 
only hope to be saved by faith, and its fruits, good wprks ; they 



256 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

must repent, must quit their long-cherished sins, and lead a new 
life ; for them there is no rope of St. Francis to pull them out, 
if once in the pit : no rosary of St. Dominick to remove them, 
quick, presto, begone, from torment to happiness. Outside the 
pale of the Vatican, their souls have no chance, and inside the 
frontiers of Spain their bodies have scarcely a better prospect, j 
should they die in that orthodox land. There the greatest liberal 
barely tolerates any burial at all of their black-blooded heretical 
carcasses, as no corn will grow near them. Until within a very 
few years at seaport towns, their bodies used to be put in a hole 
in the sands, and beyond low water mark ; nay, even this con- 
cession to the infidel offended the semi-Moro fishermen, who true 
believers and persecutors feared that their soles might be poi- 
soned : not that either sailor or priest ever exhibited any fear of 
taking British current coin, all cash that comes into their nets 
being most Catholic, so says the proverb, El dinero es muy 
Catolico. 

Matters connected with the grave have been placed, as regards 
Protestants, on a much more pleasant footing within these last' 
few years ; and it may be a consolation to invalids, who are sent 
to Spain for change of climate, and who are particular, to know, 
in case of accidents, that Protestant burial-grounds are now per- 
mitted at Cadiz, Malaga, and in a few other places. The history 
of the permission is curious, and has never, to the best of our be- 
lief, been told. In the days of Philip II. Lutherans were counted 
in many degrees worse than dogs ; when caught alive, they were 
burnt by the holy tribunal ; and when dead, were cast out on the 
dunghill. Even when our poltroon James I. sent, in 1622, his 
ill-judged olive-bearing mission, by which Spain was saved from 
utter humiliation, Mr. Hole, the secretary of the ambassador, 
Lord Digby, having died at Santander, the body was not allowed 
to be buried at all ; it was put into a shell, and sunk in the sea ; 
but no sooner was his lordship gone, than " the fishermen," we 
quote from Somers' tracts, " fearing that they should catch no 
fish as long as the coffin of a heretic lay in their waters," fished 
it up, " and the corpse of our countryman and brother was thrown 
above ground to be devoured by the fowls of the air." In the 
treaty of 1630, the 31st Article provided for the disposal of the 



LUTHERAN BURIAL. 257 

goods of those Englishmen who might die in Spain, but not for 
their bodies. " These," says a commentator of Rymer, " must 
be left st'nking above ground, to the end that the dogs may be 
sure to find them." When Mr. Washington, page to Charles I., 
died at Madrid, at the time his master was there, Howell, who 
was present, relates that it was only as an especial favor to the 
suitor of the Spanish Infanta that the body was allowed to be in- 
terred in the garden of the embassy, under a fig-tree. A few 
years afterwards, 1650, Ascham, the envoy of Cromwell, was 
assassinated, and his corpse put, without any rights, into a hole ; 
but the Protector was not a man to be trifled with, and knew well 
how to deal with a Spanish government, always a craven and 
bully, from whom nothing ever is to be obtained by concession 
and gentleness, which is considered as weakness, while every- 
thing is to be extorted from its fears. He that very year com- 
?nand^d a treaty to be prepared for the proper burial of his sub- 
jects, to which the blustering Spaniard immediately assented. 
This provision was stipulated into the treaty of Charles II. in 
1664, and was conceded and ratified again in 1667 to Sir Richard 
Fanshawe. 

No step, however, appears to have been taken before 1796, 
when Lord Bute purchased a spot of ground for the burial 
of Englishmen outside the Alcala-gate, at Madrid. During the 
war, when all Spain was a churchyard to our countrymen, this 
bit of land was taken possession of by a worthy Madrilenian, not 
for his place of sepulture, but for good and profitable cultivation. 
In 1831 Mr. Addington caused some researches to be made, and 
the original conveyance was found in the Contaduria de Hypothe- 
cas, the registry of deeds and mortgages which backward Spain 
possesses, and v.'hich advanced England does not. The intruder 
was ejected after some struggling on his part. Before Lord 
Bute's time the English had been buried at night and without ce- 
remonies, in the garden of the convent de los Recoleios ; and, as 
Lord Bute's new bit of ground was extensive and valuable, the 
pious monks wished to give up the English corner in their gar- 
den, in exchange for it ; but the transfer vvas prevented by the 
recent law v>^hich forbade all burial in cities. The field pur- 
chased by Lord Bute is now unenclosed and uncultivated ; fortu- 



258 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

nately it has not been much wanted, only fifteen Protestants hav- 
ing died at Madrid during the last thirty years. In November, 
1831, Ferdinand VII. finally settled this grave question by a de- 
cree, in which he granted permission for the erection of a Pro- 
testant burial-ground in all towns where a British consul or agent 
should reside, subject to most degrading conditions. The first 
cemetery set apart in Spain, in virtue of this gracious decree from 
a man replaced on his throne by the death of 30,000 English- 
men, was the work of Mr. Mark, our consul at Malaga; he en- 
closed a spot of ground to the east of that city, and placed a tab- 
let over the entrance, recording the royal permission, and above 
that a cross. Thus he appealed to the dominant feelings of 
Spaniards, to their loyalty and religion. The Malaganians were 
amazed when they beheld this emblem of Christianity raised over 
the last home of Lutheran dogs, and exclaimed, " So even these 
Jews make use of the cross !" The term Jew, it must be re- 
membered, is the acme af Spanish loathing and vituperation. 
The first body interred in it was that of Mr. Boyd, who was shot 
by the bloody Moreno, with the poor dupe Torrijos and the rest 
of his rebel companions. 



THE SPANISH FIGARO. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

The Spanish Figaro — Mustachios — Whiskers — Beards — Bleeding — He- 
raldic Blood — Blue, Red, and Black Blood — Figaro's Shop — The Bara- 
tero — Shaving and Toothdrawing. 

Few who love Don Quixote, will dee.m any notice on the Pe- 
ninsular surgeon complete in which the barher is not mentioned, 
even be it in a postscript. Although the names of both these 
learned professors have long been nearly synonymous in Spain, 
the barber is much to be preferred, inasmuch as his cuts are less 
dangerous, and his conversation is more agreeable. He with the 
curate formed the quiet society of the Knight of La Mancha, as 
the apothecary and vicar used to make that of most of our coun- 
try squires of England. Let, therefore, every Adonis of France, 
now bearded as a pard although young, nay, let each and all of 
our fair readers, albeit equally exempt from the pains and penal- 
ties of daily shaving, make instantly, on reaching sunny Seville, 
a pilgrimage to the shrine of San Figaro. His shop — apochry- 
phal it is to be feared as other legendary localities — lies near the 
cathedra], and is a no less established lion than the house of Dul- 
cinea is at Toboso, or the prison tower of Gil Bias is at Segovia. 
Such is the magic power of genius. Cervantes and Le Sage 
have given form, fixture, and local habitation to the airy nothings 
of their fancy's creations, while Mozart and Rossini, by filling 
the world with melody, have bidden the banks of the Guadalquivir 
re-echo to their sweet inventions. 

To those even who have no music in their souls, the movement 
from doctors to barbers is harmonious in a land where beards 
were long honored as the type of valor and chivalry, and where 
shaving took the precedence of surgery ; and even to this day, 
la iienda de hariero, the shop of the man of the razor, is better 
supplied than many a Spanish hospital both with patients and 
cutting instruments. One word first on the black whiskers of 



260 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

tawny Spain. These patillas, as they are now termed, must be 
distinguished from the ancient mustachio, the mostacho, a very 
classical but almost obsolete word, which the scholars of Sala- 
manca have derived from f^vaid^, the upper lip. Their present 
and usual name is Bigote, which is also of foreign etymology, 
being the Spanish corruption of the German oath bey gott, and 
formed under the following circumstances : for nicknames, which 
stick like burrs, often survive the history of their origin. The 
free-riding followers of Charles V., who wore these tremendous ap- 
pendages of manhood, swore like troopers, and gave themselves 
infinite airs, to the more infinite disgust of their Spanish com- 
rades, who have a tolerable good opinion of themselves, and a 
first-rate hatred of all their foreign allies. These strange mus- 
tachios caught their eyes, as the stranger sounds which proceeded 
from beneath them did their ears. Having a quick sense of the 
ridiculous, and a most Oriental and schoolboy knack at a nick- 
name, they thereupon gave the sound to the substance, and called 
the redoubtable garnish of hair higotes. This process in the for- 
mation of phrases is familiar to philologists, who know that an 
essential part is often taken for the whole. For example, a hat, 
in common Spanish parlance, is equivalent to a grandee, as with 
us the woolsack is to a Lord Chancellor. It is natural that un- 
scholastic soldiers, when dealing with languages which they do 
not understand, should fix on their enemies, as a term of reproach, 
those words which, from hearing used the most often, they ima- 
gine must constitute the foundation of the hostile grammar. Thus 
our troops called the Spaniards los Carajos, from their terrible 
oaths and terrible runnings away. So the clever French desig- 
nated as les godams, those " stupid" fellows in red jackets who 
never could be made to know when they were beaten, but con- 
tinued to make use of that significant phrase in reference .to their 
victors, until they politely showed them the shortest way home 
over the Pyrenees. 

The real Spanish mustachio, as worn by the real Don Whis- 
kerandoses men with shorter cloaks and purses than beards and 
rapiers, have long been cut off, like the pig-tails of our monarchs 
and cabinet ministers. Yet their merits are embalmed in meta- 
phors more enduring than that masterpiece in bronze with which 



THE BEARD. 



Mr. Wyatt, full of Phidias, has adorned King George's back and 
Charing Cross. Thus hombre de mucho bigote, a man of much 
moustache, means, in Spanish, a personage of considerable pre- 
tension, a fine, liberal fellow, and anything, in short, but a bigot 
in wine, women, or theology. The Spanish original realities, 
like the pig-tails of Great Britain, have also been immortalized 
by fine art, and inimitably painted by Velazquez. Under his 
life-conferring brush they required no twisting with hot irons. 
Curling from very ire and martial instinct, they were called bi- 
gotes a la Fernandiyia, and their rapid growth was attributed to 
the eternal cannon smoke of the enemy, into which nothing could 
prevent their valorous wearers from poking their faces. This 
luxuriance has diminished in these degenerate times, unless Na- 
pier's ' History of the Peninsular War' be, as the Spaniards say, 
written in a spirit of envy and jealousy against their heroic ar- 
mies, which alone trampled on the invincible eagles of Aus- 
terlitz. 

As among the Egyptian gods and priests, rank was indicated 
by the cut of the beard, so in Spain the military, civil and clerical 
shapes were carefully defined. The Charley, or Imperial, as we 
term the little tuft in the middle of the under lip, a word by the 
way which is derivable either from our Charles or from his 
namesake emperor, was called in Spain El perrillo, " the little 
dog," the terminating tail being omitted, which however becoming 
in the animal and bronzes, shocked Castilian euphuism. 

In the mediaeval periods of Spain's greatness the beard and not 
the whisker was the real thing ; and as among the Orientals and 
ancients, it was at once the mark of wisdom and of soldiership ; 
to cut it off was an insult and injury scarcely less than decapita- 
tion ; nay, this nicety of honor survived the grave. The seated 
corps of the Cid, so tells his history, knocked down a Jew who 
ventured to take the dead lion by his beard, which, as all natural 
philosophers know, has an independent vitality, and grows 
whether its master be alive or dead, be willing or unwilling. 
When the insolent Gauls pulled these flowing ornaments of the 
aged Roman senators, they, who with unmoved dignity had seen 
Marshal Brennus steal their plate and pictures, could not brook 
that last and greatest outrage. In process of time and fashion 



262 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

the beards of Spain fell ofT, and being only worn by mendicant 
monks and he-goats, were considered ungentlemanlike, and were 
substituted among cavaliers by the Italian mostachio ; the seat of 
Spanish honor was then placed under the nose, that sensitive 
sentinel. The renowned Duke of Alva being of course in want 
of money, once offered one of his bigotes as a pledge for a loan, 
and one only was considered to be a sufficient security by the 
Rothschilds of the day, who remembered the hair-breadth escape 
of their ancestor too well to laugh at anything connected with a 
hero's beard ; nous avons change tout cela. The united Hebrews 
of Paris and London would not now advance a stiver for every 
particular hair on the bodies of Narvaez and Espartero, nor even 
if the moustache reglementaire of Montpensier, and a bushel of 
Bourbon beards, warranted legitimate, were added. 

The use of the higote in Spain is legally confined to the mili- 
tary, most of whose generals — their name is legion — are tenderly 
chary of their Charlies, dreading razors no less than swords ; 
when the Infante Don Carlos escaped from England, the only 
real difficulty was in getting him to cut oflT his moustache ; he 
would almost sooner have lost his head, like his royal English 
iocayo or omonyme. Elizabeth's gallant Di'ake, when he burnt 
Philip's fleet at Cadiz, simply called his Nelsonic touch " singeing 
the King of Spain's whiskers." Zurbano the other day thought 
it punishment enough for any Basque traitors to cut off their 
higotes, and turn them loose, like rats without tails, pour en- 
courager Us autres. It is indeed a privation. Thus Majaval, the 
pirate murderer, who by the glorious uncertainty of English law 
was not hanged at Exeter, offered his prison beard, when he 
reached Barcelona, to the delivering Virgin. Many Spanish civi- 
lians and shopkeepers, in imitation of the transpyrenean Calicots, 
men who wear moustachios on their lips in peace, and spectacles 
on their noses in war, so constantly let them grow, that Ferdi- 
nand VII. fulminated a royal decree, which was to cut them off 
from the face of the Peninsula, as the Porte is docking his true 
believers. Such is the progress of young and beardless civiliza- 
tion. The attempt to shorten the cloaks of Madrid nearly cost 
Charles III, his crown, and this cropping mandate of his beloved 
grandson was obeyed as Spanish decrees generally are, for a 



SPANISH BLEEDING. 



month all but twenty-nine days. These decrees, like solemn 
treaties, charters, stock-certificates, and so forth, being mostly 
used to light cigars ; now-a-days that the Moro-Spaniard is aping 
the true Parisian polish, the national countenance is somewhat 
put out of face, to the serious sorrow and disparagement of poor 
Figaro. 

As for his house and home none can fail finding it out ; no 
cicerone is wanted, for the outside is distinguished from afar by 
the emblems of his time-honored profession : first and foremost 
hangs a bright glittering metal Mambrino-helmet basin, with a 
neat semicircular opening cut out of the rim, into which the 
throat of the patient is let during the operation of lathering, which 
is always done with the hand and most copiously; near it are 
suspended huge grinders, which in an English museum would 
pass for the teeth of elephants, and for those of Saint Christopher 
in Spanish churches, where comparative anatomy is scouted as 
heretical in the matter of relics ; strange to say, and no Spanish 
theologian could ever satisfy us why, this saint is not the " espe- 
cial advocate" against the toothache ; here Santa Apollonia is 
the soothing patroness. Near these molars are displayed awful 
phlebotomical symbols, and rude representations of bloodlettings ; 
for in Spain, in church and out, painting does the work of print- 
ing to the many who can see, but cannot read. The barber's 
pold? with its painted bandage riband, the support by which the 
arm was kept extended, is wanting to the threshold of the Figaros 
of Spain, very much because bleeding is generally performed in 
the foot, in order that the equilibrium of the whole circulation 
may be maintained. The painting usually presents a female 
foot, which being an object, and not unreasonably, of great devo- 
tion in Spain, is selected by the artist ; tradition also influences 
the choice, for the dark sex were wont formerly to be bled regu- 
larly as calves are still, to obtain whiteness of flesh and fairness 
of complexion : as it was usual on each occasion that the lover 
should restore the exhausted patient by a present, the purses of 
gallants kept pace with the venous depletion of their mistresses. 
The Sangrados of Spain, professional as well as unprofessional, 
have long been addicted to the shedding of innocent blood ; in- 
deed, no people in the world are more curious about the pedi- 



264 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

gree purity of their own blood, nor less particular about pouring 
it out like water, whether from their own veins or those of others. 
One word on this vital fluid with which unhappy Spain is too 
often watered during her intestine disorders. 

If the Iberian anatomists did not discover its circulation, the 
heralds have " tricked" out its blazoning, as we do our admirals, 
with all the nicety of armorial coloring. Blue Hood, Sangre azul, 
is the ichor of demigods which flows in the arteries of the gran- 
dees and highest nobility, each of whose pride is to be 

" A true Kidalgo, free from every stain 
Of Moor or Jewish blood," 

a boast which like some others of theirs wants confirmation, as it 
is in the power of one woman to taint the blood of Charlemagne ; 
and nature, which cannot be written down by Debretts, has 
stamped on their countenances the marks of hybrid origin, and 
particularly from these very and most abhorred stocks ; it is from 
this tint of celestial azure that the term sangre su is given in 
Spain to the elect and best set of earth, the haute volee, who soar 
above vulgar humanity. Red blood flows in the veins of poor 
gentlemen and younger brothers, and is just tolerated by all, 
except judicious mothers, whose daughters are marriageable. 
Blood, simple blood, is the puddle which paints the cheek of the 
plebeian and roturier ; it has, or ought to possess, a perfect in- 
compatibility with the better colored fluid, and an oil and vinegar 
property of non-amalgamation. There is more difference, as 
Salario says, between such bloods, than there is between red wine 
and Rhenish. These and other dreams are, it is to be feared, 
the fond metaphors of heralds. The rosy stream in mockery of 
rouge croix and blue dragons floAvs inversely and perversely : in 
the arteries of the lusty muleteer it is the lava blood of health 
and vigor ; in the monkey marquis and baboon baron it stagnates 
in the dull lethargy of a blue collapse. Their noble, ichor is 
virtually more impoverished than their nominal rent-rollfsince the 
operation of transmission of wholesome blood from young veins 
into a worn-out frame, which is so much practised elsewhere, is 
too nice for the Sangre su and Sangrados of Spain ; the thin 
fluid is never enriched with the calipash heiress of an alderman, 
nor is the decayed genealogical stock renewed by the golden 



FIGARO'S SHOP. 265 



graft of a banker's only daughter. The insignificant grandees 
of Spain quietly permitted Christina to barter away their coun- 
try's liberties ; but when her children by the baseborn Munoz 
came betwixt them and their nobility, then alone did they remon- 
strate. Indifferent to the degradations of the throne, they were 
tremblingly alive to the punctilios of their own order. Those 
Peninsula ladies who are blues, by blood not socks, are equally 
fastidious in the serious matter of its admixture even by Hymen : 
one of them, it is said, having chanced in a moment of weak- 
ness to mingle her azure with something brownish, alleged in 
excuse that she had done so for her character's sake. " Que 
disparate, mi Senora.'' " What nonsense, my lady !" was her 
fair confidante's reply ; " ten bastards would have less discolored 
your blood, than one legitimate child the issue of such a mis- 
alliance." 

To stick, however, to our colors ; Hack blood is the vile Sty- 
gean pitch which is found in the carcasses of Jews, Gentiles, Moors, 
Lutherans, and other combustible heretics, with whose bodies the 
holy tribunal made bonfires for the good of their souls. Nay, in 
the case of the Hebrew this black blood is also thought to stink, 
whence Jews were called by fearned Latinists putos, quia putant ; 
and certainly at Gibraltar an unsavory odor seems to be gentil- 
itious in the children of Israel, not, however, to unorthodox and un- 
heraldic nostrils a jot more so, than in the believing Spanish monk. 
Recently the color black has been assigned to the blood of politi- 
cal opponents, and a copious ^'shedding of vile black blood" has 
been the regular panacea of every military Sangrado. How ex- 
tremes meet ! Thus, this aristocracy of color, in despotical old 
Spain, which lies in the veins, is placed on the skin in new repub- 
lican America. Where is the free and easy Yankee who would 
recognize a brother in a black ? 

To return to Figaro. There is no mistaking his shop ; for in- 
dependently of the external manifestations of the fine arts prac- 
tised within, his threshold is the lounge of all idlers, as well as of 
those who are anxious to relieve their chins of the thick stubble 
of a three days' growth. The house of the barber has, since the 
days of Solomon and Horace, been the mart of news and gossip, 
— of epigram and satire, as Pasquino the tailor's was at Ronie. 

PAKT TI. 13 



266 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

It is the club of the lower orders, who here take up a position, and 
listen, cloaked as Romans, to some reader of the official Gazette, 
which, with a cigar, indicates modern civilization, and soothes him 
with empty vapor. Here, again, is the mint of scandal, and ail 
who have lived intimately with Spaniards, know how invariably 
every one stabs his neighbor behind his back with words, the lower 
orders occasionally using knives sharper even than their tongues. 
Here, again, resort gamblers, who, seated on the ground with cards' 
more begrimmed than the earth, pursue their fierce game as eager 
as if existence was at stake; for there is generally some well- 
known cock of the walk, a bully, or gtiapo, who will come up and 
lay his hand on the cards, and say, " No one shall play with any 
cards but with mine" — aqui no se jiiega sino con mis barajas. If the 
parties are cowed, they give him a half-penny each. If, however, 
one of the challenged be a spirited fellow, he defies him — Aqui no 
se cobra el baraio sino con ?m pma/ de Albaceie — " You get no 
change here except out of an Albacete knife." If the defiance 
be accepted, Va7nos alia is the answer — " Let's go to it." There's 
an end then of the cards, all flock to the more interesting dearie ; 
instances have occurred where Greek meets Greek, of their tying 
the two advanced feet together, and yet remaining fencing with 
knife and cloak for a quarter of an hour before the blow be dealt. 
The knife is held firmly, the thumb is placed straight on the blade 
and calculated either for the cut or thrust. 

The term Baraio strictly means the present which is given to 
waiters who bring a new pack of cards. The origin is Arabic, 
Baara, " a voluntary gift ;" in the corruption of the Baratero, it 
has become an involuntary one. Our legal term Barratry is de- 
rived from the mediaeval Barrateria, which signifies cheating or 
foul play. Cervantes well knew that Baratar in old Spanish 
meant to exchange unfairly, to thimble-rig, to sell anything under 
its real value, and therefore gave the name of Barrateria to San- 
cho's sham government. The Baratero is quite a thing of Spain, 
where personal prowess is cherished, and there is one in every 
regiment, ship, prison, and even among galley-slaves. 

The interior of the barber's shop is equally a cosa de Espana. 
Her neighbor may boast to lead Europe in hair-dressing and 
clipping poodles, but Figaro snaps his fingers at her civilization, 



FIGARO'S SHOP 



and no cat's ears and tail can be closer shaved than his one's are. 
The walls of his operating room are neatly lathered with white- 
wash ; on a peg hangs his brown cloak and conical hat ; his 
shelves are decorated with clay-painted figures of picturesque 
rascals, arrayed in all their Andalucian toggery — bandits, bull- 
fighters, and smugglers, who, especially the latter, are more uni> 
versally popular than all or any long tail-coated chancellors of 
exchequers. The walls are enlivened with rude prints of fan- 
dango dancings, miracles, and bull-fights, in which the Spanish 
vulgar delight, as ours do in racing and I'ing notabilities. Nor is 
a portrait of his querida, his black-eyed sweetheart, often wanting. 
Near these, for religion mixes itself with everything of Spain, are 
images of the Virgin, patron saints, with stoups for holy water, 
and little cups in which lighted wicks burn floating on green oil ; 
and formerly no barber prepared for an operation, whether on 
veins, teeth, or beards, without first making the sign of a cross. 
Thus hallowed, his implements of art are duly arranged in order; 
his glass, soap, towels, and leather strap, and guitar, which, in- 
deed, with the razor, constitutes the genus barber. " These 
worthies," said Don Quixote, "are all either guitarristas o copleros j 
they are either makers of couplets, or accompany other songsters 
with catgut." Hence Quevedo, in his ' Pigsties of Satan,' pun- 
ishes unrighteous Figaros, by hanging up near them a guitar, 
which tantalizes their touch, and moves away when they wish to 
take it down. 

Few Spaniards ever shave themselves ; it is too mechanical, so 
they prefer, like the Orientals, a " razor that is hired," and as 
that must be paid for, scarcely any go to the expensive luxury of 
an every-day shave. Indeed, Don Quixote advised Saucho, when 
nominated a governor, to shave at least every other day if he wished 
to look like a gentleman. The peculiar sallowness of a Spaniard's 
face is heightened by the contrast of a sable bristle. Figaro him- 
self is dressed much after the fashion in which he appears on 
transpyrenean stages ; he, on true Galenic principles, takes care 
not to alarm his patients by a lugubrious costume. There is 
nothing black, or appertaining to the grave about him ; he is all 
tags, tassels, color, and embroidery, quips and quirks ; he is never 
still ; always in a bustle, he is lying and lathering, cutting chins 



268 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

and capers, here, there, and every where. Figaro la, Figaro qua. 
If he has a moment free from taking off beards and making paper 
cigars, he whips down his guitar and sings the last seguidilla : 
thus he drives away dull care, who hates the sound of merry 
music, and no wonder ; the operator performs his professional 
duties much more skilfully than the rival surgeon, nor does he 
bungle at any little extraneous amateur commissions ; and there 
are more real performances enacted by the barbers in Seville it- 
self, than in a dozen European opera houses. 

These Figaros, says their proverb, are either mad or garru- 
lous, Barheros, o locos, o parleros. Hence, when the Andalucian 
autocrat, Adrian, when asked how he liked to be shaved, replied 
" Silently." Humbler mortals must submit to let Figaro have 
his wicked way in talk ; for when a man is fixed in his operating 
chair, with his jaws lathered, and his nose between a finger and a 
thumb, there is not much conversational fair play or reciprocity. 
The Spanish barber is said to learn to shave on the orphan's head, 
and nothing, according to one described by Martial, escaped ex- 
cept a single wary he-goat. The experiments tried on the veins 
and teeth of aching humanity, are sometimes ludicrous — at others 
serious, as we know to our cost, having been silly enough to leave 
behind in Spain two of our wise teeth as relics, tokens, and tro- 
phies of Figaro's unrelenting prowess. We cannot but remem- 
ber such things were, and were dearer, than the pearls in Cleo- 
patra's ears, which she melted in her gazpachos. " A mouth 
without molars," said Don Quixote to Sancho, " is worse than a 
mill without grinding-stones ;" and the Don was right. 



WHAT TO OBSERVE IN SPAIN. 



CHAPTER XX. 

What to observe in Spain — How to observe — Spanish Incur iousness and 
Suspicions — French Spies ind Plunderers — Sketching in Spain — Diffi- 
culties ; How surmounted — Efficacy of Passports and Bribes — Uncertainty 
and Want of Information in the Natives. 

Now that the most approved methods of travelling, living, and 
being buried in Spain have been touched on, our kind readers 
will naturally inquire, what are the peculiar attractions which 
should induce gentlemen and ladies who take their ease at home, 
to adventure into this land of roughing it, in which rats rather 
than hares jump up when the least expected. " What to ob- 
serve" is a question easier asked than answered ; who indeed can 
cater for the multitudinous variety of fancies, the differences by 
which Nature keeps all nature right ? Who shall decide when 
doctors disagree, as they always do, on matters of taste, since 
every one has his own way of viewing things, and his own hobby 
and predilection ? Say not, however, with Smellfungus, that all 
is a wilderness from Dan to Beersheba, — nor seek for weeds 
where flowers grow. The search for the excellent is the high 
road to excellence, as not to appreciate it when found is the 
surest test of mediocrity. The refining effort and habit teaches 
the mind to think ; from long pondering on the beautiful world 
without, snatches are caught of the beautiful world within, and 
a glimpse is granted to the chosen few, of glories hidden from the 
vulgar many. They indeed have eyes, but see not ; nay, scarcely 
do they behold the things of external nature, until told what to 
look for, where to find it, and how to observe it ; then a new 
sense, a second sight, is given. Happy, thrice happy those from 
whose eyes the film has been removed, who instead of a previous 
vague general and unintelligent stare, have really learnt to see .' 
To them a fountain of new delights, pure and undefiled, welling 
up and overflowing, is opened ; in proportion as they comprehend 



270 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

the infinite form, color, and beauty with which Nature clothes 
her every work, albeit her sweetest charms are only revealed to 
the initiated, reserved as the rich reward of those who bow to her 
shrine with singleness of purpose, and tui'n to her worship with 
all their hearts, souls, and understandings. 

It was with these beneficent intentions that our good friend John 
Murray first devised Handbooks ; and next, by writing them him- 
self, taught others how to dip into inkstands for red books, which 
tell man, woman, and child what to observe, to the ruin of laquais 
de place, and discomfiture of authors of single octavos and long 
vacation excursions. Few gentlemen who publish the notes of 
their Peninsular gallop much improve their light diaries by dis- 
cussing heavy handbook subjects ; skimming, like swallows, over 
the surface, and in pursuit of insects, they neither heed nor dis- 
cern the gems which lurk in the deeps below ; they see in- 
deed all the scum and straws which float on the surface, and 
write down on their tablets all that is rotten in the state of Spain. 
Hence the sameness of some of their works ; one book and bandit 
reflects another, until writers and readers are imprisoned in a 
vicious circle. Nothing gives more pain to Spaniards than see- 
ing volume after volume written on themselves and their country 
by foreigners, who have only rapidly glanced at one-half of the 
subject, and that half the one of which they are the most ashamed, 
and consider the least worth notice. This constant prying into 
the nakedness of the land and exposing it afterwards, has increased 
the dislike which they entertain towards the impertinente curioso 
tribe: they well know and deeply feel their country's decline; 
but like poor gentlefolks, who have nothing but the past to be 
proud of, they are anxious to keep these family secrets concealed, 
even from themselves, and still more from the observations of those 
who happen to be their superiors, not in blood, but in worldly 
prosperity. This dread of being shown up sharpens their in- 
herent suspicions, when strangers wish to " observe," and examine 
into their ill-provided arsenals and institutions, just as Burns was 
scared even by the honest antiquarian Grose ; so they lump the 
good and the bad, putting ihem down as book-making Paul Prys: — 

" If there 's a hole in a' your coats, 
I rede ye tent it ; 



DISLIKE TO OBSERVERS. 



A chiel -s amang ye, taking notes, 
And faith ! he'll prent it.'' 

The less observed and said about these Spanish matters, these 
cosas de Espana — the present tatters in her once proud flag, on 
which the sun never set — is, they think, the soonest mended. 
These comments heal slower than the knife-gash — " Sanan 
cuchUladas, mas no malas ftdcibras." Let no author imagine that 
the fairest observations that he can take and make of Spain as 
she is, setting down naught in malice, can ever please a Spaniard ; 
his pride and self-esteem are as great as the self-conceit and low 
consequence of the American : both are morbidly sensitive and 
touchy ; both are afflicted with the notion that all the world, who 
are never troubling their heads about them, are thinking of noth- 
ing else, and linked in one common conspiracy, based in envy, 
jealousy, or ignorance ; " you don't understand us, I guess." 
Truth, except in the shape of a compliment, is the greatest of 
libels, and is hov/led against as a lie and forgery from the Straits to 
the Bidasoa; Napier's history, for example. The Spaniard, who 
is hardly accustomed to a free, or rather a licentious press, and 
the scavenger propensity with which, in England and America, it 
rakes into the sewers of private life and the gangrenes of public, 
is disgusted with details which he resents as a breach of hospital- 
ity in strangers. He considers, and justly, that it is no proof 
either of goodness of breeding, heart, or intellect, to be searching 
for blemishes rather than beauties, for toadstools rather than vio- 
lets ; he despises those curmudgeons who see motes rather than 
beams in the brightest eyes of Andalucia. The productions of 
strangers, and especially of those who ride and write the quickest, 
.must savor of the pace and sources from whence they originate. 
Foreigners who are unacquainted with the language and good 
society of Spain are of necessity brought the most into contact 
with the lowest scenes and the worst class of people, thus road- 
scrapings and postillion information too often constitute the raw- 
head- and-bloody-bones material of their composition. All this 
may be very amusing to those who like these subjects, but they 
afford a poor criterion for descanting on whatever does the most 
honor to a country, or gives sound data for judging its real con- 
dition. How would we ourselves like that Spaniards should form 



272 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

their opinions of England and Englishmen from the Newgate 
calendars, the reports of cads, and the annals of beer-shops ? 

Various as are the objects worth observing in Spain, many of 
which are to be seen there only, it may be as well to mention 
what is not to be seen, for there is no such loss of time as finding 
this out oneself, after weary chase and wasted hour. Those who 
expect to meet with well-garnished arsenals, libraries, restaurants, 
charitable or literary insitutions, canals, railroads, tunnels, sus- 
pension-bridges, steam-engines, omnibuses, manufactories, poly- 
technic galleries, pale-ale breweries, and similar appliances and 
appurtances of a high state of political, social, and commercial 
civilization, had better stay at home. In Spain there are no 
turnpike-trust meetings, no quarter-sessions, no courts of justice, 
according to the real meaning of that word, no treadmills no 
boards of guardians, no chairmen, directors, masters extraordinary 
of the court of chancery, no assistant poor-law commissioners. 
There are no anti-tobacco-teetotal-temperance-meetings, no auxil- 
iary-missionary-propagating societies, nothing in the blanket and 
lying-in asylum line, nothing, in short, worth a revising-barrister 
of three years' standing's notice, unless he be partial to the study 
of the laws of bankruptcy. Spain is no country for the political 
economist, beyond affording an example of the decline of the 
wealth of nations, and offering a wide topic on errors to be avoid- 
ed, as well as for experimental theories, plans of reform and 
amelioration. In Spain, Nature reigns ; she has there lavished 
her utmost prodigality of soil and climate, which Spaniards have 
for the last four centuries been endeavoring to counteract by a 
culpable neglect of agricultural speeches and dinners, and a non- 
distribution of prizes for the biggest boars, asses, and laborers^ 
with largest families. 

The landed proprietor of the Peninsula is little better than a 
weed of the soil ; he has never observed, nor scarcely permitted 
others to observe, the vast capabilities which might and ought to 
be called into action. He seems to have put Spain into Chancery, 
such is the general dilapidation. The country is little better than 
a terra incognita, to naturalists, geologists, and all other branches 
of ists and ologists. Every where there, the material is as super- 
abundant as native laborers and operatives are deficient. All 



WHAT TO OBSERVE. 



these interesting branches of inquiry, healthful and agreeable, as 
being out-of-door pursuits, and bringing the amateur in close 
. contact with nature, offer to embryo authors who are ambitious to 
hook .something new, a more worthy subject than the old story of 
dangers of bull-fights, bandits, and black eyes. Those who aspire 
to the romantic, the poetical, the sentimental, the artistical, the 
antiquarian, the classical, in siiort, to any of the sublime and 
beautiful lines, will find both in the past and present state of 
Spain, subjects enough in wandering with lead pencil and note- 
book thi'ough this singular country, which hovers between Europe 
and Africa, between civilization and barbarism : this land of the 
green valley and barren mountain, of the bq,undless plain and the 
broken sierra j those .Elysian gardens of the vine, the olive, the 
orange, and the aloe ; those trackless, vast, silent, uncultivated 
wastes, the heritage of the wild bee ; — in flying from the dull 
uniformity, the polished monotony of Europe, to the racy fresh- 
ness of that original, unchanged country, where antiquity treads 
on the heels of to-day, where Paganism disputes the very altar 
with Christianity, where indulgence and luxury contend with 
privation and poverty, where a want of all that is generous or 
merciful is blended with the most devoted heroic virtues, where 
the most cold-blooded cruelty is linked with the fiery passions of 
Africa, where ignorance and erudition stand in violent and stri- 
king contrast. 

" There," says the Handbook, in a style which qualifies the 
author for the best bound and fairest edited album, " let the anti- 
quarian pgre over the stirring memorials of many thousand years, 
the vestiges of Phoenician enterprise, of Roman magnificence, of 
Moorish elegance, in that storehouse of ancient customs, that re- 
pository of all elsewhere long forgotten and passed by ; there let 
him gaze upon those classical monuments, unequalled almost in 
Greece or Italy, and on those fairy Aladdin palaces, the creatures 
of Oriental gorgeousness and imagination, with which Spain alone 
can enchant the dull European ; there let the man of feeling dwell 
on the poetry of her envy-disarming decay, fallen from her high 
estate, the dignity of a dethroned monarch, borne with unrepining 
self-respect, the last consolation of the innately noble, which no 
adversity can take away ; let the lover of art feed his eyes with 
13* 



274 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

the mighty masterpieces of ideal Italian art, when Raphael and 
Titian strove to decorate the palaces of Charles, the great empe- 
ror of the age of Leo X. Let him gaze on the living nature of 
Velazquez and Murillo, whose paintings are truly to be seen in 
Spain alone ; let the artist sketch frowning forms of the castle, 
the pomp and splendor of the cathedral, where God is worshipped 
in a manner as nearly befitting his glory as the arts and wealth 
of finite man can reach. Let him dwell on the Gothic gloom of 
the cloister, the feudal turret, the vasty Escorial, the rock-built 
alcazar of imperial Toledo, the sunny towers of stately Seville, 
the eternal snows and lovely vega of Granada ; let the geologist 
clamber over mountains of marble, and metal-pregnant sierras ; 
let the botanist cull from the wild hothouse of nature plants un- 
known, unnumbered, matchless in color, and breathing the aroma 
of the sweet south ; let all, learned and unlearned, listen to the 
song, the guitar, the castanet ; or join in the light fandango and 
spirit-stirring bull-fight ; let all mingle with the gay, good-hu- 
mored, temperate peasantry, free, manly, and independent, yet 
courteous and respectful ; let all live with the noble, dignified, 
high-bred, self-respecting Spaniard ; let all share in their easy, 
courteous society ; let all admii'e their dark-eyed women, so frank 
and natural, to whom the voice of all ages and nations has con- 
ceded the palm of attraction, to whom Venus has bequeathed her 
magic girdle of grace and fascination ; let all — but enough on 
starting on this expedition, " where," as Don Quixotte said, 
" there are opportunities, brother Sancho, of putting our hands 
into what are called adventures up to our elbows." 

Nor was the La Manchan hidalgo wrong in assigning a some- 
what adventurous character to the searchers in Spain for useful 
and entertaining knowledge, since the natives are fond, and with 
much reason, of comparing themselves and their country to tesoros 
escondidos, to hidden treasures, to talents buried in napkins ; but 
they are equally fond of turning round, and falling foul of any 
pains-taking foreigner who digs them up, as Le Sage did the soul 
of Pedro Garcias. Nothing throughout the length and breadth 
of the land creates greater suspicion or jealousy than a stranger's 
making drawings, or writing down notes in a book : whoever is 
observed sacando planes, " taking plans," mapeando el pais, " map- 



SUSPICION OF OBSERVERS. 275 



ping the country," — rfor such are the expressions of the shnplest 
pencil sketcli — is thought to be an engineer, a spy, and, at all 
events, to be about no good. Tlie lower classes, like the Orien- 
tals, attach a vague mysterious notion to these, to them unintelli- 
.gible, proceedings ; whoever is seen at work is immediately re- 
ported to the civil and military authorities, and, in fact, in out-of- 
the-way places, whenever an unknown person arrives, from the 
rarity of the occurrence, he is the observed of all observers. 
Much the same occurs in the East, where Europeans are suspect- 
ed of being emissaries of their governments, as neither they nor 
Spaniards can at all understand why any man should incur trou- 
ble and expense, which no native ever does, for the mere purpose 
of acquiring knowledge of foreign countries, or for his own pri- 
vate improvement or amusement. Again, whatever particular 
investigations or questions are made by foreigners, about things 
that to the native appear unworthy of observation, are magnified 
and misrepresented by the many, who, in every place, wish to 
curry favor with whoever is the governor or chief person, whe- 
ther civil or military. The natives themselves atfach little or no 
importance to views, ruins, geology, inscriptions, and so forth, 
which they see every day, and which they therefore conclude can- 
not be of any more, or ought not to be of more, interest to the 
stranger. They judge of him by themselves; few men ever 
draw in Spain, and those who do are considered to be professional, 
and employed by others. 

One of the many fa^al legacies left to Spain by the French, 
was an increased suspicion of men with the pencil and note-book. 
Previously to tAeir invasion spies and agents were sent, who, un- 
der the gpfse of travellers, reconnoitred the land ; and then, 
casting- otf the clothing of sheep, guided in the wolves to plunder 
and destruction. The aged prior of the Merced, at Seville, ob- 
served to us, when pointing out the empty frames and cases from 
M'hence the Messrs. Soult and Co. had •' removed" the Murillos 
and sacred plate, — " Lo creira usied — Will your Grace believe it, 
I beheld among the ladrones a person who grinned at me when I 
recognized him, to whom, some time before the invaders' arrival, 
I had pointed out these very treasures. Tonto de mi ! Oh ! 
simpleton that I was, to take a gahacho for an honest man." Yet 



276 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

this worthy individual was decorated with the legion of honor of 
Buonaparte, whose " first note in his pocket-book"of agenda, after 
the conquest of England, was to " carry off the Warwick vase ;" 
as Denon, who too had spoiled the Egyptians, told Sir E. Tomason. 
We English, whose shops, " bursting with opulence into the 
streets," have not yet been visited, although the temptation is 
held out by royal pamphleteers, can scarcely enter into the feel- 
ings of those whose homes are still reeking whh blood, and 
blighted by poverty. The Castilian cat, who has been scalded, 
flies even from cold water. 

Some excuse, therefore, may be alleged in favor of Spanish 
authorities, especially in rarely visited districts, when they be- 
hold a strange barbarian eye peeping and peering about. Their 
first impression, as in the East, is that he may be a Frank : hence 
the shaking, quaking, and ague which comes over them. At 
Seville, Granada, and places where foreign artists are somewhat 
more plentiful, the processes of drawing may be passed over with 
pity and contempt, but in lonely localities the star-gazing observer 
is himself the object of argus-eyed, official observation. He is, 
indeed, as unconscious of the portentous emotions and ill-omened 
fears which he is exciting, as was the innocent crow of the mean- 
ings attached to his movements by the Roman augurs, and few 
augurs of old ever rivalled the Spanish alcaldes of to-day in 
quick suspicion and perception of evil, especially where none is 
intended. Witness what actually o<^curred to three excellent 
friends of ours. 

The readers of Borrow's inimitable ' Biblt. in Spain' will re- 
member his hair-breadth escape from being shot for Don Carlos by 
the miraculous intervention of the alcalde of Corcu'nion, who, if 
still alive, must be a phoenix, and clearly worth obserytjtion, as 
he was a reader of the " grand Baintham," or our illustrious 
Jeremy Bentham, to whom the Spanish reformers sent for a paper 
constitution, not having a \evY clear meaning of the word or 
thing, whether it was made of cotton or parchment. Another of 
the very best investigators and writers on Spain, Lord Carnarvon, 
was nearly put to death in the same districts for Don Miguel ; 
Captain Widdrington, also one of the kindest and most honorable 
of men, was once arrested on suspicion of being an agent of 



DRAWING IN SPAIN. 277 

Espartero ; and we, our humble selves, have had the felicity of 
being marched to a guard-house for sketching a Roman ruin, and 
the honor of being taken, either for Curius Dentatus, an alligator, 
or Julius Caesar, — as there is no absurdity, no inconceivable 
ignorance, too great for the local Spanish " Dogberries," vi'ho 
rarely deviate into sense ; when their fears or suspicions are 
roused, they are as deaf alike to the dictates of common reason or 
humanity as adders or Berbers ; and here, as in the East, even 
the best intentioned may be taken up for spies, and have their 
beards, at least, cut off, as was done to King David's envoyes. All 
classes, in regard to strangers, generally get some hostile notions 
into their heads, and then, instead of fairly and reasonably endea- 
voring to arrive at the truth, pervert every innocent word, and 
twist every action, to suit their own preconceived nonsense, until 
trifles become to their jealous minds proofs as strong as Holy 
Writ. In justice, however, it must be said, that when these 
authorities are once satisfied that the stranger is an Englishman, 
and that no harm is intended, no people can be more civil in 
offering assistance of every kind, especially the lower classes, 
who gaze at the magical performance of drawing with wonder ; 
the higher classes seldom take any notice, partly from courtesy, 
and much from the nil admirari principle of Orientals, which 
conceals both inferiority and ignorance, and shows good breeding. 
The drawing any garrison-town or fortified place in Spain is 
now most strictly forbidden. The prevailing ignorance of every- 
thing connected with the arts of design is so great, that no dis- 
tinction is made between the most regular plan and the merest 
artistical sketch : a drawing is with them a drawing, and punish- 
able as such. A Spanish barrack, garrison, or citadel is there- 
fore to be observed but little, and still less to be sketched. A 
gentleman, nay, a lady also, is liable, under any circumstances, 
when drawing to be interrupted, and often is exposed to arrest 
and incivility. Indeed, whether an artist or not, it is as well not 
to exhibit any curiosity in regard to matters connected with mili- 
tary buildings ; nor will the loss be great, as they are seldom 
worth looking at. The troops in our time were in a most ad- 
mired disorder. If they wore shoes they had no stockings ; if 
they had muskets, flints were not plentiful ; if powder was sup- 



27S THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

plied, balls were scarce ; nothing, in short, was ever according 
to regulation. Nay, the buttons even on the officers' coats were 
never dressed in file : some had the numbers up, some down, 
some awry ; but uniformity is a thing of Europe and not of the 
East. At this moment, when the church is starved, when wi- 
dows' pensions are unpaid, when governmental bankruptcy walks 
the land, whose bones, marrow, and all are wasted to support 
the army, whose swords uphold the hated men in ofiice, the bands 
of the Royal Guard, the Prsetorian bands, do not keep tune, nor 
do the rank and file march in time. However painful these 
things to pipe-clay martinets, the artist loses much, by not being 
able to sketch such tumble-down forts and ragged garrisons, 
each Bisono of which is more precious to painter eye than the 
officer in command at Windsor ; while his short petticoated 
querida is more Murillo-like than a score of pati'onesses of Al- 
mack's. 

The safest plan for those who want to observe, and to book 
what they observe, is to obtain a Spanish passport, with the object 
of their curiosity and inquiries clearly specified in it. There is 
seldom any difficulty at Madrid, if application be made through 
the English minister, in obtaining such a document; indeed, 
when the applicant is well known, it is readily given by any of 
the provincial Captains-General. As it is couched in the Span- 
ish language, it is understood by all, high and low ; an advan- 
tage which is denied in Spain to those issued by our ambassa- 
dors, and even by the Foreign Office, who, to the credit of them- 
selves and nation, give passes to Englishmen in the French lan- 
guage, whereby among Spaniards a suspicion arises that the 
bearer may be a Frenchman, which is not always pleasant. We 
preserve among rare Peninsular relics a passport granted by our 
kind patron the redoubtable Conde de Espaiia, and backed by 
the no less formidable Quesada and Sarsfield, in which it was 
enjoined, in choice, intelligible Castilian, to all and every minor 
rulers and governors, whether with the pen or sword, to aid and 
assist the bearer in his examination of the fine arts and antiquities 
of the Peninsula. These autocrats were more implicitly obeyed 
in their respective Lord Lieutenancies than Ferdinand himself; 
in fact, the pashas of the East are their exact types, each in 



ORIENTAL ANALOGIES. 279 

their district being the heads of both civil and military tribunals ; 
and as they not only administer, but suit the law according to the 
length of their own feet, they in fact make it and trample upon it, 
and all in any authority below them imitate their superiors as 
nearly as they dare. These things of Spain are managed with a 
gravity truly Oriental, both jn the rulers and in the resignation 
of those ruled by them ; these great men's passport and signa- 
ture were obeyed by all minor authorities as simplicitly as an 
Oriental firman ; the very fact of a stranger having a Captain- 
General's passport, is soon known by everybody, and, to use an 
Oriental phrase, " makes his face to be whitened ;" it acts as a 
letter of introduction, and is in truth the best one of all, since it 
is addressed to people in power in each village or town, who, 
true sheikhs, are looked up to by all below them with the same 
deference, as they themselves look up to all above them. The 
worth of a person recommended, is estimated by that of the per- 
son who recommends ; tal recomendadon tal recoviendado. To 
complete this thing of Oriental Spain, these three omnipotent des- 
pots, who defied laws human and divine, who made dice of their 
enemies bones, and goblets of their skulls, have all since been 
Assassinated, and sent to their account with all their sins on their 
heads. In limited monarchies ministers who go too far, lose their 
places, in Spain and Turkey their heads : the former, doubtless, 
are the most severely punished. 

Those who wish to observe Spanish man, which, next to Span- 
ish woman, forms the proper study of mankind, will find that 
one key to decipher this singular people is scarcely European, 
for this Berleria Cristiana is a neutral ground placed between the 
hat and the turban ; many indeed of themselves contend that Af- 
rica begins at the Pyrenees. Be that as it may, Spain first civil- 
ized by the Phoenicians, and long possessed by the Moors, has in- 
delibly retained the original impressions. Test her, therefore, 
and her males and females, by an Oriental standard, how analo- 
gous does much appear that is strange and repugnant, if com- 
pared with European usages. Take care, however, not to let 
either the ladies or gentlemen know the hidden processes of your 
mind, for nothing gives greater offence. The fair sex is willing, 
to prevent such a mistake, to lay aside even their becoming man- 



280 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

alias, as their hidalgos doff their stately Roman cloaks. These 
old clothes they offer up as sacrifices on the altar of civilization, 
and to the mania of looking exactly like the rest of the world, 
in Hyde Park and the Elysian Fields. 

Another remarkable Oriental trait is the general want of love 
for the beautiful in art, and the abundance of that Acpdoxuha 
with which the ancients reproached the genuine Iberians ; this is 
exhibited in the general neglect and indifference shown towards 
Moorish works, which instead of destroying they ought rather to 
have protected under glasses, since such attractions are peculiar 
to the Peninsula. The Alhamhra, the pearl and magnet of 
Granada, is in their estimation little better than a casa de ratones, 
or a rat's hole, which in truth they have endeavored to make it by 
centuries of neglect ; few natives even go there, or understand 
the all-absorbing interest, the concentrated devotion, which it ex- 
cites in the stranger ; so the Bedouin regards the ruins of Pal- 
myra, insensible to present beauty, as to past poetry and ro- 
mance. Sad is this non-appreciation of the Alhamhra by the 
Spaniards, but such are Asiatics, with whom sufficient for the 
day is thei?^ to-day ; wh© care neither for the past nor for the fu- 
ture, who think only for the present and themselves, and like, 
them the masses of Spaniards, although not wearing turbans, lack 
the organs of veneration and admiration for anything beyond 
matters connected with the first person and the present tense. 
Again, the leaven of hatred against the Moor and his relics is not 
extinct ; they resent as almost heretical the preference shown by 
foreigners to the works of infidels rather than to those of good 
Catholics ; such preference again at once implies their inferiority, 
and convicts them of bad taste in their non-appreciation, and of 
Vandalism in laboring to mutilate, what the Moor labored to 
adorn. The charming writings of Washington Irving, and the 
admiration of European pilgrims, have latterly shamed the au- 
thorities into a somewhat more conservative feeling towards the 
Alhamhra; but even their benefits are questionable ; they " repair 
and beautify" on the churchwarden principle, and there is no less 
danger in such " I'estorations" than in those fatal scourings of 
Murillo and Titian in the Madrid gallery, which are effacing the 
lines where beauty lingers. Even their tardy appreciation is 



FAMILIARITY BREEDS CONTEMPT. 



somewhat interested : thus Mellado, in his late Guide, laments 
that there should be no account of the Alhambra, of which he 
speaks coldly, and suggests, as so many " English" visit it, that 
a descriptive work would be a segura especulacion ! a safe specu- 
lation ! Thus the poetry of the Moorish Alhambra is coined into 
the Spanish prose of profitable shillings and sixpences. 

Travellers however should not forget, that much which to them 
has tire ravishing, enticing charms of novelty, is viewed by the 
dull sated eye of the native, with familiarity which breeds con- 
tempt ; they are weary, oh fatal lassitude ! even of the beautiful : 
alas ! exclaimed the hermit on Monserrat, to the stranger who 
was ravished by exquisite views, then and there beheld by him 
for the first and last time, " all this has no attraction for me ; 
twenty and nine are the years that I have seen this unchanged 
scene, every sunrise, every noon, every sunset." But sordent 
domestica, observes Pliny, nor are all things or persons honored 
in their own homes as they ought to be, since the days that Ma- 
homet the true prophet failed to persuade his wife and valet that 
his powers were supernatural. Can it be wondered that I'uins 
and " old rubbish" should be held cheap among the Moro-Span- 
iards ? or that their so-called " guides" should mislead and 
misdirect the stranger ? It cannot well be avoided, since few of 
the writers ever travel in their own country, and fewer travel out 
of it; thus from their limited means of comparison, they cannot 
appreciate differences, nor tell what are the wants and wishes of 
a foreigner : accordingly, scenes, costumes, ruins, usages, cere- 
monies, &c., which they have known from childhood, are passed 
over without notice, although, from their passing newness to the 
stranger, they are exactly what he most desires to have pointed 
out and explained. Nay, the natives frequently despise or are 
ashamed of those very things, which most interest and charm the 
foreigner, for whose observation they select the modern rather 
than the old, offering especially their poor pale copies of Eui'ope, 
in preference to their own rich, racy, and natural originals, doing 
this in nothing more than in the costume and dwellings of the 
lower classes, who happily are not yet afflicted with the disease 
of French polish : they indeed, when they dig up ancient coins, 
will rub off the precious rust of twice ten hundred years, in order 



282 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

to render them, as they imagine, more saleably attractive ; but 
they fortunately spare themselves, insomuch that Charles III., on 
failing in one of his laudable attempts to improve and modernize 
them, compared his loving subjects to naughty children, who 
quarrel with their good nurse when she wants to wash them. 

Again, no country in the world can vie with Spain, where the 
dry climate at least is conservative, with memorials of auld lang 
syne, with tower and turret, Prout-like houses and toppling bal- 
conies, so old that they seem only not to fall into the torrents and 
ravines over which they hang. Here is every form and color of 
picturesque poverty ; vines clamber up the irregularities, while 
below maids dabble, washing their red and yellow garments in 
the all-gilding glorious sunbeams. What a picture it is to all but 
the native, who sees none of the wonders of lights and shadows, 
reflections, colors, and outlines ; who, blind to all the beauties, 
is keenly awake only to the degradation, the rags and decay ; 
he half suspects that your sketch and admiration of a smuggler 
or a bullfighter is an insult, and that you are taking it, in order 
to show in England what Mons. Guizot vi^ill never be forgiven for 
calling the " brutal" things of Spain ; accordingly, while you 
are sincerely and with reason delighted witli sashes and Zamarras, 
he begs you to observe his ridiculous Boulevard-cut coat : or when 
you sit down opposite to a half-ruined Roman wall, some crum- 
bling Moorish arch, or mediaeval Gothic shrine, he implores you to 
come away and draw the last spick and span Royal Academical 
abortion, coldly correct and classically dull, in order to carry 
home a sample which may do credit to Spain, as approximating 
to the way things are managed at Charing Cross. 

Without implicitly following the advice of these Spaniards of 
better intention than taste, no man of research will undervalue 
any assistance by which his objects are promoted, even should 
he be armed with a captain-general's passport, and a red Mur- 
ray. Meagre is the oral information which is to be obtained from 
Spaniards on the spot ; these incurious semi-Orientals look with 
jealousy on the foreigner, and either fence with him in their 
answers, raise difficulties, or, being highly imaginative, magnify 
or diminish everything as best suits their own views and sus- 
picions. The national expressions, " Quien sahe ? no se sabe,'^ — 



DIFFICULTIES OF SIGHT-SEEING. 283 

" who knows ? I do not know," will often be the prelude to " No 
se puedej" — " it can't be done." 

These impediments and impossibilities are infinitely increased 
when the stranger has to do with men in office, be it ever so 
humble ; the first feeling of these Dogberries is to suspect mischief 
and give refusals. " No" may be assumed to be their natural 
answer ; nor even if you have a special order of permission, is ad- 
niission by any means certain. The keeper, who here as elswhere, 
considers the objects committed to his care as his own private pro- 
perty and source of perquisite, must be conciliated : often when 
you have toiled through the heat and dust to some distant church, 
museum, library, or what not, after much ringing and waiting, 
you will be dryly informed that it is shut, can't be seen, that it 
is the wrong day, that you must call again to-morrow ; and if it 
be the right day, then you will be told that the hour is wrong, 
that you are come too earl}', too late ; very likely the keeper's 
wife will inform you that he is out, gone to mass, or market, or at 
his dinner, or at his siesta, or if he is at home and awake, he will 
swear that his wife has mislaid the key, " which she is always 
doing." If all these and other excuses won't do, and you perse- 
vere, you will be assured that there is nothing worth seeing, or 
you v/ill be asked why you want to see it ? As a general rule, 
no one should be deterred from visiting anything, because a Span- 
iard of the upper classes gives his opinion that the object is be- 
neath notice ; he will try to convince you that Toledo, Cuenca, 
and other places which cannot be matched in Christendom, are 
ugly, odious, old cities ; he is ashamed of them because the tor- 
tuous, narrow lanes do not run in rows as straight as Pall Mall 
and the Rue de Rivoli. In fact his only notion of a civilized 
town is a common-place assemblage of rectangular wide streets, 
all built and colored uniformly, like a line of foot-soldiers, paved 
with broad flags, and lighted with gas, on which Spaniards can 
walk about dressed as Englishmen, and Spanish women like those 
of France ; all of which said wonders a foreigner may behold 
far better nearer home ; nor is it much less a waste of time to go 
and see what the said Spaniard considers to be a real lion, since 
the object generally turns out to be some poor imitation, without 
forfn, angle, history, nationality, color, or expression, beyond that 



284 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

of utilitarian comfort and common-place convenience — great 
advantages no doubt both to contractors and political economists, 
but death and destruction to men of the pencil and note-book. 

The sound principles in Spanish sight-seeing are few and sim- 
ple, but, if observed, they will generally prove successful ; first, 
persevere ; never be put back ; never take an answer if it be in 
the negative ; never lose temper or courteous manners ; and 
lastly, let the tinkle of metal be heard at once ; if the chief or 
great man be inexorable, find out privately who is the wretched 
sub who keeps the key, or the crone who sweeps the room ; and 
then send a discreet messenger to say that you will pay to be ad- 
mitted, without mentioning " nothing to nobody." Thus you will 
always obtain your view, even when an official order fails. On 
our first arrival at Madrid, when but young in these things of 
Spain, we were desirous of having daily permission to examine a 
royal gallery, which was only open to the public on certain days ia 
the week. In our grave dilemma we consulted a sage and expe- 
rienced diplomatist, and this was the oracular reply : " Certainly, 
if you wish it, I will make a request to Seiior Salmon (the then 
Home Secretary), and beg him to give you the proper order, as a 
personal favor to myself. By the way, how much longer shall 
you remain here ?" — " From three to four weeks." — " Well, then, 
after you have been gone a good month, I shall get a courteous 
and verbose epistle from his Excellency, in which he will deeply 
regret that, on searching the archives of his office, there was no 
instance of such a request having ever been granted, and that he 
is compelled most reluctantly to return a refusal, from the fear of 
a precedent being created. My advice to you is to give the por- 
ter a dollar, to be repeated whenever the door-hinges seem to be 
getting rusty and require oiling." The hint was taken, as was 
the bribe, and the prohibited portals expanded so regularly, that 
at last they knew the sound of our footsteps. Gold is the Spanish 
sesame. Thus Soult got into Badajoz, thus Louis Philippe put Es- 
partero out, and Montpensier in. Gold, bright red gold, is the sove- 
reign remedy which in Spain smoothes all difficulties, nay some in 
which even force has failed, as here the obstinate heads may be 
guided by a straw of bullion, but not driven by a bar of iron. 
The magic influence of a bribe pervades a land, where every- 



OFFICIAL CORRUPTION. 



thing is venal, even to the scales of justice. Here men who have 
objects to gain begin to work from the bottom, not from the top, 
as we do in England. In order to ensure success, no step in the 
official ladder must be left unanointed. A wise and prudent 
suitor bribes from the porter to the premier, taking care not to 
forget the under-secretary, the over-secretary, the private secre- 
tary, all in their order, and to regulate the douceur accordhig to 
each man's rank and influence. If you omit the porter, he will 
not deliver your card, or will say Sehor Mon is out, or will tell 
you to call again manana, the eternal to-morrow. If you forget 
the chief clerk, he will mislay your petition, or poison his mas- 
ter's ear. In matters of great and political importance, the sove- 
reign, him or herself, must have a share ; and thus it was that 
Calomarde continued so long to manage the beloved Ferdinand 
and his counsels. He was the minister who laid the greatest bribe 
at the royal feet. "• Sire, by strict attention and honesty, I have 
just been enabled to economize £50,000, on the sums allotted to 
my department, which I have now the honor and felicity to place 
at your Majesty's disposal." — " Well done, my fahhful and good 
minister, here is a segar for you." This Calomarde, who began 
life as a foot-boy, smuggled through the Christinist swindle, by 
which Isabel now wears the crown of Don Carlos. The rogue 
wa^fewarded by being made Condie de Sa. Isabel, a title which 
since has been cqpferred on Mons. Bresson's baby — a delicate 
compliment to his sire's labors in the transfer of the said crown to 
Louis Philippe — but Spaniards are full of dry humor. 

In the East, the example and practice of the Sultan and Vizier 
is followed by every pacha, down to the lowest animal who wields 
the most petty authority ; the disorder of the itching palm is en- 
demic and epidemic, all, whether high and low, want, and must 
have money ; all wish to get it without the disgrace of begging, 
and without the danger of highway robbery. Public poverty is 
the curse of the land, and all empleados or persons in office excuse 
themselves on dire necessity, the old plea of a certain gentleman, 
which has no law. Some allowance, therefore, may be made for 
the rapacity which, with very few exceptions, prevails ; the regu- 
lar salaries, always inadequate, are generally in arrear, and the 
public servants, poor devils, swear that they are forced to pay 



286 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

themselves by conniving at defrauding the government ; this few 
scruple to do, as all know it to be an unjust one, and that it can 
afford it ; indeed, as all are offenders alike, the guilt of the offence 
is scarcely admitted. Where robbing and jobbing are the uni- 
versal order of the day, one rascal keeps another in countenance, 
as one goitre does another in Switzerland, A man who does not 
feather his nest when in place, is not thought honest, but a fool ; 
es preciso, que cada uno coma de su qficio. It is necessary, nay, a 
duty, as in the East, that all should live by their office ; and as of- 
fice is short and insecure, no time or means is neglected in making 
up a purse ; thus poverty and their will alike and readily consent. 

Take a case in point. We remember calling on a Spaniard 
who held the highest office in a chief city of Andalucia. As we 
came into his cabinet a cloaked personage was going out ; the 
great man's table was covered with -gold ounces, which he was 
shovelling complacently into a drawer, gloating on the glorious 
haul. " Many ounces. Excellency," said we. " Yes, my friend," 
was his reply — " no quiero comer mas patatas, — I do not intend to 
dine any more on potatoes." This gentleman, during the Sistema, 
or Riego constitution, had, with other loyalists, been turned out of 
office ; and, having been put to the greatest hardships, was losing 
CO time in taking prudent and laudable precautions to avert any 
similar calamity for the future. His practices were pei^Hbtly 
well known in the town, where people simply^observed, " Estd 
alesorando, he is laying up treasures," — as every one of them 
would most certainly have done, had they been in his fortunate 
position. Rich and honest Britons, therefore, should not judge 
too hardly of the sad shifts, the strange bed-fellows, with which 
want makes the less provided Spaniards acquainted. Bonde no 
hay ahundancia, no hay ohservancia. The empty sack cannot 
stand upright, nor was ever a sack made in Spain into which gain 
and honor could be stowed away together ; honra y provecho, no 
cahen en un saco o techo ; here virtue itself succumbs to poverty, 
induced by more than half a century of misgovernment, let alone 
the ruin caused by Buonaparte's invasion, to which domestic 
troubles and civil wars have been added. 

To return, however, to sight-seeing in Spain. Lucky was the 
traveller prepared even to bribe and pay, who ever in our time 



A aUESTION OP DAYS. 



chanced to fall in with a librarian who knew what books he had, 
or with a priest who could tell what pictures were in his chapel ; 
ask him for the painting by Murillo — a shoulder-shrug was his 
reply, or a curt '■'•no hay,'' " there is none :" had you inquired for 
the " blessed St. Thomas," then he might have pointed it out ; the 
suhjcct, not the artist, being all that was required for the service 
of the church. An incurious bliss of ignorance is no less grateful 
to the Spanish mind, than the dolce far niente or sweet indolent 
doing nothing is to the body. All that gives trouble, or-" fashes," 
destroys the supreme height of felicity, which consists in avoiding 
exertion. A chapter might be filled with instances, which, had 
they not occurred to our humble selves, would seem caricature 
inventions. The not to be able to answer the commonest question, 
or to give any information as to matters of the most ordinary daily 
occurrence, is so prevalent, that we at first thought it must pro- 
ceed from some fear of committal, some remnant of inquisitorial 
engendered reserve, rather than from bona fide careless and con- 
tented ignorance. The result, however of much intercourse and 
experience arrived at, was, that few people are more communica- 
tive than the lower classes of Spaniards, especially to an English- 
man, to whom they reveal private and family secrets : their want 
of knowledge applies rather to things than to persons. 

If you called on a Spanish gentleman, and, finding him out, 
wished afterwards to write him a note, and inquired of his man 
or maid servant the number of the house ; — " I do not know, my 
lord," was the invariable answer, " I never was asked it before, I 
have never looked for it : let us go out and see. Ah ! it is num- 
ber 36." Wishing once to send a parcel by the wagon from 
Merida to Madrid, " On what day, my lord," said I to the pot-bel- 
lied, black-whiskered ventero, " does your galera start for the 
Court ?" " Every Wednesday," answered he ; " and let not 
your grace be anxious" — " Disparate — nonsense," exclaimed his 
copper-skinned, bright-eyed wife, " why do you tell the English 
knight such lies ? the wagon, my lord, sets out on Fridays." 
During the logomachy, or the few words which ensued between 
the well-matched pair, our good luck willed, that the mayoral or 
driver of the vehicle should come in, who forthwith informed us 
that the days of departure were Thursdays ; and he was right. 



288 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

This occurred in the provinces ; take, therefore, a parallel pas- 
sage in the capital, the heart and brain of the Castiles. " Senor, 
tenga Usted la hondad — My Lord," said I to a portly, pompous 
bureaucrat, who booked places in the dilly to Toledo, — "have 
the goodness, your grace, to secure me one for Monday, the 
7th." — " I fear," replied he, politely, for the negocio had been 
prudently opened by my offering him a real Havannah, " that 
your lordship has made a mistake in the date. Monday is the 
8th of the current month" — which it was not. Thinking to settle 
the matter, we handed to him, with a bow, the almanack of the 
year, which chanced to be in our pocket-book. "Senor,'" said 
he, gravely, when he had duly examined it, " I knew that I was 
right ; this one was printed at Seville," — which it was — " and 
we are here at Madrid, which is otra cosa, that is, altogether an- 
other affair." In this solar difference and pre-eminence of the 
Court, it must bo remembered, that the sun, at its creation, first 
shone over the neighboring city, to which the dilly ran ; and that 
even in the last century, it was held to be heresy at Salamanca, 
to say that it did not move round Spain. In sad truth, it has 
there stood still longer than in astronomical lectures or metaphors. 
Spain is no paradise for calculators ; here, what ought to happen, 
and what would happen elsewhere according to Cocker and the 
doctrine probabilities, is exactly the event which is the least 
likely to come to pass. One arithmetical fact only can be reck- 
oned upon with tolerable certainty : let given events be repre- 
sented by numbers ; then two and two may at one time make 
three, or possibly five at another ; but the odds are four to one 
against two and two ever making four ; another safe rule in 
Spanish official numbers ; e. g. " five thousand men killed and 
wounded" — " five thousand dollars will be given" and so forth, is 
to deduct two noughts, and sometimes even three, and read fifty 
or five instead. 

Well might even the keen-sighted, practical Duke say it is dif- 
ficult to understand the Spaniards exactly ; there neither men nor 
women, suns nor clocks go together ; there, as in a Dutch con- 
cert, all choose their own tune and time, each performer in the 
orchestra endeavoring to play the first fiddle. All this is so- 
much a matter of course, that the natives, like the Irish, make a 



CERTAINTY OF BULL-FIGHTS. 



joke of petty mistakes, blunders, unpunctualities, inconsequences, 
and procurantisms, at which accurate Germans and British men 
of business are driven frantic. Made up of contradictions, and 
dwelling in the pays de Vimprevu, where exception is the rule, 
where accident and the impulse of the moment are the moving 
powers, the happy-go-lucky natives, especially in their collective 
capacity, act like women and children. A spark, a trifle, sets the 
impressionable masses in action, and none can foresee the com- 
monest event ; nor does any Spaniard ever attempt to guess be- 
yond la situacion actual, the actual present, or to foretell what the 
morrow will bring ; that he leaves to the foreigner, who does 
not understand him. Padencia y larajar is his motto ; and he 
waits patiently to see what next will turn up after another 



There is one thing, however, which all know exactly, one ques- 
tion which all can answer ; and providentially this refers to the 
grand object of every foreigner's observation — " When will the 
bull-fight be and begin?" and this holds good, notwithstanding 
that there is a proviso inserted in the notices, that it will come off 
on such a day and hour, " if the weather permits." Thus, al- 
though these spectacles take place in summer, when for months 
and months rain and clouds are matters of history, the cautious 
authorities doubt the blessed sun himself, and mistrust the cer- 
tainty of his proceedings, as much as if they were ir-regulated by 
a Castilian clockmaker. 

PART II. 14 



THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 



CHAPTERXXI. 

Origin of the Bull-fight or Festival, and its Religious Character — Fiestas 
Reales — Royal Feasts — Charles I. at one — Discontinuance of the Old 
System — Sham Bull-fights— Plaza de Toros — Slang Language — Spanish 
Bulls— Breeds— The Going to a Bull-fight. 

Our honest John Bulls have long been more partial to their 
Spanish namesakes, than even to those perpetrated by the Pope, 
or made in the Emerald Isle ; to see a bull-fight has been the em- 
phatic object of enlightened curiosity, since Peninsular sketches 
have been taken and published by our travellers. No sooner had 
Charles the First, when prince, lost his heart at Madrid, than his 
royal father-in-law-that-was-to-be, regaled him and the fair in- 
spirer of his tender passion, with one of these charming specta- 
cles ; an event which, as many men and animals were butchered, 
was thought by historiographers of the day to be one that pos- 
terity would not willingly let die ; their contemporary accounts 
will ever form the gems of every tauromachian library that 
aspires to be complete. 

These sports, which recall the bloody games of the Roman am- 
phitheatre, are now only to be seen in Spain, where the present 
clashes with the past, where at every moment we stumble on 
some bone and relic of Biblical and Roman antiquity ; the close 
parallels, nay the identities, which are observable between these 
combats and those of classical ages, both as regards the spectators 
and actors, are omitted, as being more interesting to the scholar 
than to the general reader ; they were pointed out by us some years 
ago in the Quarterly Review, No. cxxiv. And as human nature 
changes not, men when placed in given and similar circumstan- 
ces, will without any previous knowledge or intercommunication 
arrive at nearly similar results ; the gentle pastime of spearing 
and killing bulls in public and single-handed was "probably de- 
vised by the Moors, or rather by the Spanish Moors, for nothing 



1 



BULL FESTIVALS. 291 



of the kind has ever obtained in Africa either now or heretofore. 
The Moslem Arab, when transplanted into a Christian and Eu- 
ropean land, modified himself in many respects to the ways and 
usages of the people among whom he settled, just as his Oriental 
element was widely introduced among his Gotho-Hispano neigh- 
bors. Moorish Andalucia is still the head-quai'ters of the tau- 
romachian art, and those who wish carefully to master this, 
the science of Spain par excellence, should commence their 
studies in the school of Ronda, and proceed thence to take the 
highest honors in the University of Seville, the Bullford of the 
Peninsula. 

By the way, our boxing, baiting term h\x\\-jight is a very lay 
and low translation of the time-honored Castilian title, Fiestas de 
Toros, the feasts, festivals of bulls. The gods and goddesses of 
antiquity were conciliated by the sacrifice of hecatombs ; the 
lowing tickled their divine ears, and the purple blood fed their 
eyes, no less than the roasted surloins fattened the priests, while 
the grand spectacle and death delighted their dinnerless congre- 
gations. In Spain, the Church of Rome, never indifferent to its 
interests, instantly marshalled into its own service a ceremonial 
at once profitable and popular ;* it consecrated butchery by 
wedding it to the altar, availing itself of this gentle handmaid, to 
obtain funds in order to raise convents ; even in the last century, 
Papal bulls were granted to mendicant orders, authorizing them 
to celebrate a certain number of Fiestas de Toros, on condition of 
devoting the profit to finishing their church ; and in order to swell 
the receipts at the doors, spiritual indulgences and soul releases 
from purgatory, the number of years being apportioned to the 
relative prices of the seats, were added as a bonus to all paid for 
places at a spectacle hallowed by a pious object. So at the 
taurobolia of antiquity, those who were sprinkled with bull blood 
were absolved from sin. Protestant ministers, who very properly 
fear and distrust papal bulls, replace them by bazaars and fancy 

* The love for killing oxen still prevails at Rome, where the ambition 
of the lower orders to be a butcher, is, like their white costume, a remnant 
of the honorable office of killing at the Pagan sacrifices. In Spain butchers 
are of the lowest caste, and cannot prove " purity of blood." Francis I. 
never forgave the " Becajo de Parigi " applied by Dante to his ancestor. 



292 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

fairs, whenever a fashionable chapel requires a new blue slate roof- 
ing. Again, when not devoted to religious purposes, every bull- 
fight aids the cause of charity ; the profits form the chief income 
of public hospitals, and thus furnish both funds and patients, as 
Ikhe venous circulation of the mob thirsting for gore, rises to blood 
heat under a sun of fire, and the subsequent mingling of sexes, 
opening of bottles and knives, occasion more deaths among the 
lords and ladies of the Spanish creation, than among the horned 
and hoofed victims of the amphitheatre. 

It is a common but very great mistake, to suppose that bull- 
fights are as numerous in Spain as bandits ; it is just the con- 
trary, for this may there be considered the tip-top aesthetic treat, 
as the Italian Opera is in England, and both are rather expensive 
amusements ; true it is that with us, only the salt of the earth 
patronizes the performers of the Haymarket, while high and low, 
vulgar and exquisite, alike delight in those of the Spanish fields. 
Each bull-fight costs from 200Z. to 300/., and even more when got 
up out of Andalucia or Madrid, which alone can afford to support 
a standing company ; in other cities the actors and animals have 
to be sent for express, and from great distances. Hence the re- 
presentations occur like angels' vishs, few and far between ; they 
are reserved for the chief festivals of the church and crown, for 
the unfeigned devotion of the faithful on the holy days of local 
saints, and the Virgin ; they are also given at the marriages and 
coronations of the sovereign, and thence are called Fiestas reales, 
Royal festivals — the ceremonial being then deprived of its re- 
ligious character, although it is much increased in worldly and 
imposing importance. The sight is indeed one of surpassing 
pomp, etiquette, and magnificence, and has succeeded to the 
Auto de Fi, in offering to the most Catholic Queen and her sub- 
jects the greatest possible means of tasting rapture, that the 
limited powers of mortal enjoyment can experience in this world 
of shadows and sorrows. 

They are only given at Madrid, and then are conducted en- 
tirely after the ancient Spanish and Moorish customs, of which 
such splendid descriptions remain in the ballad romances. They 
take place in the great square of the capital, which is then con- 
yerted into an arena. The windows of the quaint and lofty 



AN INVOLUNTARY CHAMPION. 293 

houses are arranged as boxes, and hung with velvets and silks. 
The royal family is seated under a canopy of state in the balcony 
of the central mansion. There we beheld Ferdinand VII. pre- 
siding at the solemn swearing of allegiance to his daughter. He 
was then seated where Charles I. had sat two centuries before ; 
he was guarded by the unchanged halberdiers, and was witness- 
ing the unchanged spectacle. On these royal occasions the bulls 
are assailed by gentlemen, dressed and armed as in good old 
Spanish times, before the fatal Bourbon accession obliterated 
Castilian costume, customs, and nationality. The champions clad 
in the fashions of the Philips, and mounted on beauteous barbs, 
the minions of their race, attack the fierce animal with only a 
short spear, the immemorial weapon of the Iberian. The com- 
batants must be hidalgos by birth, and have each for a padrino, 
or godfather, a first-rate grandee of Spain, who passes before 
royalty in a splendid equipage and six, and is attended by bands 
of running footmen, who are arrayed either as Greeks, Romans, 
Moors, or fancy characters. It is not easy to obtain these cabal- 
leros en plaza, or poor knights, who are willing to expose their 
lives to the imminent dangers, albeit during the fight they have 
the benefit of experienced toreros to advise their actions and cover 
their retreats. 

In 1833 a gentle dame, without the privity of her lord and hus- 
band, mscribed his name as one of the champion volunteers. In 
procuring him this agreeable surprise, she, so it was said in 
Madrid, argued thus : " Either mi marido will be killed — in that 
case I shall get a new husband ; or he will survive, in which 
event he will get a pension," She failed in both of these admi- 
rable calculations — such is the uncertainty of human events. 
The terror of this poor Mros malgri lui, on whom chivalry had 
been thrust, was absolutely ludici'ous when exposed by his well- 
intentioned better-half, to the horns of this dilemma and bull. 
Any other horns, my dearest, but these ! He was wounded at 
the first rush, did survive, and did not get a pension ; for Ferdi- 
nand died soon after, and few pensions have been paid in the 
Peninsula, since the land has been blessed with a cliarie, constitu- 
tion, liberty, and a representative government. 

One anecdote, where another lady is in the case, may be new 



294 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

to our fair readers. We quote from an ancient authentic chroni- 
cler : — " It will not be amiss here to mention what fell out in the 
presence of Charles the First of Blessed Memory, who, while 
Prince of Wales, repaired to the court of Spain, whether to be 
married to the Infanta, or upon what other design, I cannot well 
determine : however, all comedies, playes, and festivals (this of 
the bulls at Madrid being included), were appointed to be as de- 
cently and magnificently gone about as possible, for the more 
sumptuous and stately entertainment of such a splendid prince. 
Therefore, after three bulls had been killed, and the fourth a 
coming forth, there appeared four gentlemen in good equipage ; 
not long after, a brisk lady, in most gorgeous apparel, attended 
with persons of quality, and some three or four grooms, walked 
all along the square a-foot. Astonishment seized upon the be- 
holders, that one of the female sex could assume the unheard 
boldness of exposing herself to the violence of the most furious 
beast yet seen, which had overcome, yea almost killed, two men 
of great strength, courage, and dexterity. Incontinently the bull 
rushed towards the corner where the lady and her attendants stood ; 
she (after all had fled) drew forth her dagger very unconcernedly, 
and thrust it most dexterously into the bull's neck, having catclied 
hold of his horn • by which stroke, without any more trouble, 
her design was brought to perfection ; after which, turning about 
towards the king's balcony, she made her obeysance, and with- 
drew herself in suitable state and gravity." 

At the jura of 1833 ninety-nine bulls were massacred j had 
one more been added the hecatomb would have been complete. 
These wholesale slaughterings have this year been repeated at 
the marriage of the same " innocent'^ Isabel, the critical events 
of whose life are death-warrants to quadrupeds. Bulls, however, 
represent in Spain the coronation banquets of England. In that 
hungry, ascetic land, bulls have always been killed, but uo beef 
eaten ; a remarkable fact, wljich did not escape the learned 
Justin in his remarks on the no-dinner-giving crowned heads of 
old Iberia. 

These genuine ancient bull-fights were perilous and fatal in the 
extreme, yet knights were never wanting — valor being the point 
of honor — who readily exposed their lives in sight of their cruel 



RUIN OF OLD BULL-FICtHT 295 

mistresses. To kill the monster if not killed by him, was, before 
the time of Hudibras, the sure road to woman's love, who ve'ry 
properly admire those qualities the best, in which they feel them- 
selves to be the most deficient : — 

'• The ladies' hearts begau to melt. 
Subdued by blows their loYers felt ; 
So Spanish heroes, with their lances. 
At once wound bulls and ladies' fancies." 

The final conquest of the Moors, and the subsequent cessation 
of the border chivalrous habits of the Spaniards, occasioned these 
love-pastimes to fall into comparative disuse. The gentle Isa- 
bella was so shocked at the bull-fights which she saw at Medina 
del Campo, that she did her utmost to put them down ; but she 
strove in vain, for the game and monarchy were destined to fall 
together. The accession of Philip V. deluged the Peninsula 
with Frenchmen. The puppies of Paris pronounced the Span- 
iards and their bulls to be barbarous and brutal, as their artistes 
to this day prefer the bceufgras of the Boulevards to whole flocks 
of Iberian lean kine. The spectacle which had withstood her 
influence, and had beat the bulls of Popes bowed before the des- 
potism of fashion. The periwigged courtiers deserted the arena, 
on which the royal Bourbon eye looked coldly, while the sturdy 
people, foes — then as now— to Frenchmen and innovations, 
clung closer to the sports of their forefathers. Yet a fatal blow 
was dealt to the combat : the aii, once practised by knights, 
degenerated into the vulgar butchery of mercenary bull-fighters, 
who contended not for honor, but base lucre ; thus, by be- 
coming the game of the mob, it was soon stripped of every 
gentlemanlike prestige. So the tournament challenges of our 
chivalrous ancestors have sunk down to the vulgar boxings of 
ruffian pugilists. 

Baiting a bull in any shape is irresistible to the lower orders 
of Spain, who disregard injuries to the bodies, and, what is 
worse, to their cloaks. The hostility to the horned beast is in- 
stinctive, and grows with their growth, until it becomes, as men 
are but children of a larger growth, a second nature. The 
young urchins in the streets play at " toro," as ours do at leap- 



296 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

frog ; they go through the whole mimic spectacle amongst each 
other, observing every law and rule, as our schoolboys do when 
they fight. Few adult Spaniards, when journeying through 
the country ever pass a herd of cows without this dormant pro- 
pensity breaking out ; they provoke the animals to fight by 
waving their cloaks or capas, a challenge hence called el capeo. 
The villagers, who cannot afford the expense of a regular bull- 
fight, amuse themselves with baiting novillos, or bull-youngsters 
— calves of one year old ; and embolados, or bulls whose horns 
are guarded with tips and buttons. These innocent pastimes are 
despised by the regular aficion, the " fancy ;" because, as neither 
man nor beast are exposed to be killed, the whole affair is based 
in fiction, and impotent in conclusion. They cry out for Toros 
de muerte — bulls of death. Nothing short of the reality of blood 
can allay their excitement. They despise the makeshift specta- 
cle, as much as a true gastronome does mock-turtle, or an old cam- 
paigner a sham fight. 

In the wilder districts of Andalucia few cattle are ever brought 
into towns for slaughter, unless led by long ropes, and partially 
baited by those whose poverty prevents their indulgence in the 
luxury of real bull-fights and beef. The governor of Tarifa was 
wont on certain days to let a bull loose into the streets, when the 
delight of the inhabitants was to shut their doors, and behold from 
their grated windows the perplexities of the unwary or strangers, 
pursued by him in the narrow lanes without means of escape. 
Although many lives were lost, a governor in our time, named 
Dalmau, otherwise a public benefactor to the place, lost all his 
popularity in the vain attempt to put the custom down. When 
the Bourbon Philip V. first visited the placa at Madrid, all the 
populace roared, Bulls ! give us hulls, my lord. They cared little 
for the ruin of the monarchy ; so when the intrusive Joseph Buona- 
parte arrived at the same place, the only and absorbing topic of 
public talk was whether he would grant or suppress the bull- 
fight. And now, as always, the cry of the capital is — "joan y 
toros ; bread and bulls :" these constitute the loaves and fishes of 
the "only modern court," as Panes et Circenses did of ancient 
Rome. The national scowl and frown which welcomed Mont- 
pensier at his marriage, was relaxed for one moment, when 



THE PLAZA DE TOROS. 297 

Spaniards beheld his well-put-on admiration for the tauroma- 
chian spectacle. Nothing since the recent vast improvements in 
Spain has more progressed than the bull-fight — convents have 
come down, churches have been levelled, but new amphitheatres 
have arisen. The diffusion of useful and entertaining knowledge, 
as the means of promoting the greatest happiness of the greatest 
number, has thus obtained the best consideration of those patriots 
and statesmen who preside over the destinies of Spain ; the bull is 
master of his ground. This last remnant and representative of 
Spanish nationality defies the foreigner and his civilization ; he is 
a fait accompli and tramples la cliarte under his feet, althougli the 
honest Roi citoyen swears that it is desormais une v^riti. 

In Spain there is no mistaking the day and time that the bull- 
fight takes place, which is generally on Saint Monday, and in the 
afternoon, when the mid-day heats are past. 

The arena, or Plaza, is most unlike a London Place, those en- 
closures of stunted smoke-blacked shrubs, fenced in with iron 
palisadoes to protect aristocratic nurserymaids from thejnob. It 
is at once more classical and amusing. The amphitheatre of 
Madrid is very spacious, being about 1100 feet in circumference, 
and will hold 12,000 spectators. In an architectural point of 
view this ring of the model court, is shabbier than many of those 
in provincial towns : there is no attempt at orders, pilasters, and 
Vitruvian columns ; there is no adaptation of the Coliseum of 
Rome : the exterior is bald and plain, as if done so on purpose, 
while the interior is fitted up with wooden benches, and is scarcely 
better than a shambles ; but for that it was designed, and there is 
a business-like, murderous intention about it, which marks the 
insesthetic Gotho-Spaniard, who looked for a sport of blood and 
death, and not to a display of artistical skill. He has no need of 
extraneous stimulants ; the realiti atroce, as a tender-hearted for- 
eigner observes, " is all-sufficing, because it is the recreation of 
the savage, and the sublime of common souls." The locality, 
however, is admirably calculated for seeing ; and this combat is a 
spectacle entirely for the eyes. The open space is full of the 
light of heaven, and here the sun is brighter than ^as or wax- 
candles. The interior is as unadorned as the exterior, and looks 
positively " mesquin" when empty ; around the sanded centre 
14* 



298 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

rise rows of wooden seats for the humbler classes, and above them 
a tier of boxes for the fine ladies and gentlemen ; but no sooner 
is the theatre filled than all this meanness is concealed, and the 
general appearance becomes superb. 

On entering the ring when thus full, the stranger finds his 
watch put back at once eighteen hundred years ; he is transported 
to Rome under the Ccesai's ; and in truth the sight is glorious, of 
the assembled thousands in their Spanish costume, the novelty of 
the spectacle, associated with our earliest classical studies, are 
enhanced by the blue expanse of the heavens, spread above as a 
canopy. There is something in these out-of-door entertainments, 
d Vantique, which peculiarly affects the shivering denizens of the 
catch-cold north, where climate contributes so little to the happi- 
ness of man. All first-rate connoisseurs go into the pit and place 
themselves among the mob, in order to be closer to the bulls and 
combatants. The real thing is to sit near one of the openings, 
which enables the fancy-man to exhibit his embroidered gaiters 
and neat leg. It is here that the character of the bull, the nice 
traits and the behavior of the bull-fighter are scientifically criti- 
cised. The ring has a dialect peculiar to itself, which is unintel- 
ligible to most Spaniards themselves, while to the sporting-men of 
Andalucia it expresses their drolleries with idiomatic raciness, and 
is exactly analogous to the slang and technicalities of our pugi- 
listic craft. The newspapers next day generally give a detailed 
report of the fight, in which every round is scientifically described 
in a style that defies translation, but which being drawn up by 
some Spanish Boz, is most delectable to all who can understand 
it ; the nomenclature of praise and blame is defined with the most 
accurate precision of language, and the delicate shades of char- 
acter are distinguished with the nicety of phrenological subdi- 
vision. The foundation of this lingo is gipsy Romany, meta- 
phor, and double entendre; to master it is no easy matter; in- 
deed, a distinguished diplomat and tauromachian philologist, whom 
we are proud to call our friend, was often unable to comprehend 
the full pregnancy of the meaning of certain terms, without a 
reference to the late Duke of San Lorenzo, who sustained the 
character of Spanish ambassador in London and of bull-fighter in 
Madrid with equal dignity ; his grace was a living lexicon of 



SPANISH BULLS. 



slang. Yet let no student be deterred by any difficulty, since he 
will eventually be repaid, when he can fully relish the Andalu- 
cian wit, or sal Andaluga, the salt, with which the reports are 
flavored : that it is seldom Attic must, however, he confessed. 
Nor let time or pains be grudged ; there is no royal road to 
Euclid, and life, say the Spanish fancy, is too short to learn bull- 
fighting. This possibly may seem strange, but English squires 
and country gentlemen assert as much in regard to fox-hunting. 

The day appointed for a bull-feast is announced by placards of 
all colors ; the important particulars decorate every wall. The 
first thing is to secure a good place beforehand, by sending for a 
Boletin de Sombra, a shade-ticket ; and as the great object is to 
avoid glare and heat, the best places are on the northern side, 
which are in the shade. The transit of the sun over the Plaza, 
the zodiacal progress into Taurus, is decidedly the best calculated 
astronomical observation in Spain ; the line of shadow defined on 
the arena is marked by a gradation of prices. The different 
seats and prices are everywhere detailed in the bills of the play, 
with the names of the combatants and the colors of tne different 
breeds of bulls. 

The day before the fight, the bulls destined for the spectacle are 
driven towards the town, and pastured in a meadow reserved for 
their reception ; then the fine amateurs never fail to ride out to 
see what the cattle is like, just as the knowing in horseflesh go to 
Tattersall's of a Sunday afternoon, instead of attending evening 
service in their parish churches. According to Pepe Illo, who 
was a very practical man, and the first author on the modern sys- 
tem of the arena, of which he was the brightest ornament, and on 
which he died in the arms of victory, the " love of bulls is inhe- 
rent in man, especially in the Spaniard, among which glorious 
people there have been bull-fights ever since there were bulls, 
because the Spanish men are as much more brave than all other 
men, as the Spanish bull is inore fierce and valiant than all other 
bulls." Certainly, from having been bred at large, in roomy un- 
enclosed plains, they are more active than the animals raised by 
John Bull, but as regards form and power, they would be scouted 
in an English cattle-show ; a real British bull, witii his broad 
neck and short horns, would make quick work with the men and 



300 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

horses of Spain ; his " spears" would be no less effective than the 
bayonets of our soldiers, which no foreigner faces twice, or the 
picks of our Navvies, three and three-eighths of whom are calcu- 
lated by railway economists to eat more beef and do more work 
than five and five-eighths of corresponding foreign material. By 
the way, the correct Castilian word for the bull's horns is astas, 
the Latin hastas, spears. Cuernos must never be used in good 
Spanish society, since, from its secondary meaning, it might give 
offence to present company: allusions to common calamities are 
never made to ears polite, however frequent among the vulgar, 
who call things by their improper names — nay, roar them out, as 
in the time of Horace : " Magna compellens voce cucullum." 

Not every bull will do for the Plaza, and none but the fiercest 
are selected, who undergo trials from the earliest youth ; the 
most celebrated animals come from Utrera near Seville, and from 
the same pastures where that eminent breeder of old Geryon raised 
those wonderful oxen, which all but burst with fat in fifty days, 
and were " lifted" by the invincible Hercules. Senor Cabrera, 
the modern Geryon, was so pleased with Joseph Buonaparte, or 
so afraid, that he offered to him a hundred bulls, as a hecatomb 
for the rations of his troops, who, braver and hungrier than Her- 
cules, would otherwise have infallibly followed the demigod's ex- 
ample. The Manchegan bull, small, very powerful, and active, 
is considered to be the original stock of Spain ; of this breed was 
" Manchangito," the pet of the Visconde de Miranda, a tauroma- 
chian noble of Cordova, and who used to come into the dining- 
room, but having one day killed a guest, he was destroyed after 
violent resistance on the part of the Viscount, and only in obe- 
dience to the peremptory mandate of the Prince of the Peace. 

The caphal is supplied with animals bred in the valleys of the 
Jarama near Aranjuez, which have been immemorially cele- 
brated. From hence came that Harpado, the magnificent beast 
of the magnificent Moorish ballad of Gazul, which was evidently 
written by a practical torero, and on the spot : the verses sparkle 
with daylight and local color like a Velazquez, and are as 
minutely correct as a Paul Potter, while Byron's " Bull-fight" 
is the invention of a foreign poet, and full of slight inaccuracies. 

The encierro, or the driving the bulls to the arena, is a service 



THE ENCIERRO. 301 



of danger ; they are enticed by tame oxen, into a road which is 
barricadoed on each side, and tiien driven full speed by the 
mounted and spear-bearing peasants into the Plaza. It is an 
exciting, peculiar, and picturesque spectacle ; and the poor who 
cannot afford to go to the bull-fight, risk their lives and cloaks in 
order to get the front places, and best chance of a stray poke en 
passant. 

The next afternoon all the world crowds to the Plaza de toros. 
You need not ask the way ; just launch into the tide, which in 
these Spanish affairs will assuredly carry you away. Nothing 
can exceed the gaiety and sparkle of a Spanish public going, 
eager and full dressed to i\\e fight. They could not move faster 
were they running away from a real one. All the streets or 
open spaces near the outside of the arena present of themselves a 
spectacle to the stranger, and genuine Spain is far better to be 
seen and studied in the streets, than in the saloon. Now indeed 
a traveller from Belgravia feels that he is out of town, in a new 
world and no mistake ; all around him is a perfect saturnalia, all 
ranks are fused in one stream of living beings, one bloody thought 
beats in every heart, one heart beats in ten thousand bosoms ; 
every other business is at an end, the lover leaves his mistress 
unless she will go with him, — the doctor and lawyer renounce 
patients, briefs, and fee ; the city of sleepers is awakened, and 
all is life, noise, and movement, where to-morrow will be the still- 
ness and silence of death ; now the bending line of the Calle de 
Alcald, which on other days is broad and dull as Portland Place, 
becomes the aorta of Madrid, and is scarcely wide enough for the 
increased circulation ; now it is filled with a dense mass colored 
as the rainbow, which winds along like a spotted snake to its prey. 
Oh the din and dust ! The merry mob is everything, and, like 
the Greek chorus, is always on the scene. How national and 
Spanish are the dresses of the lower classes — for their betters 
alone appear like Boulevard quizzes, or tigers cut out from our 
East end tailors' pattern-book of the last new fashion ; what 
Manolas, what reds and yellows, what fringes and flounces, 
what swarms of picturesque vagabonds, cluster, or alas, clus- 
tered, around calesas, whose wild drivers run on foot, whipping, 
screaming, swearing ; the type of these vehicles in form and 



30a THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

color was Neapolitan ; they alas ! are also soon destined to be 
Bacrificed to civilization to the 'bus and common-place cab, or 
7ile fly. 

I'he ]}Iaza is the fo'jus of a fire, which blood alone can extin- 
guish ; what public meetings and dinners are to Britons, reviews 
and razzias to Gauls, mass or music to Italians, is this one and 
absorbing bull-fight to Spaniards of all ranks, sexes, ages, for their 
happiness is quite catching ; and yet a thorn peeps among these 
rosebuds ; when the dazzling glare and fierce African sun cal- 
cining the heavens and earth, fires up man and beast to madness, 
* raging thirst for blood is seen in flashing eyes and the irritable 
ready knife, then the passion of the Arab triumphs over the cold- 
ness of the Goth : the excitement would be terrific were it not on 
5)leasure bent; indeed there is no sacrifice, even of chastity, no 
denial, even of dinner, which they will not undergo to save money 
for the bull-fight. It is the birdlime with which the devil catches 
many a female and male soul. The men go in all their best cos- 
tume and majo-finery ; the distinguished ladies wear on these oc- 
casions white lace mantillas, and when heated, look, as the An- 
daluz wag Adrian said, like sausages wrapped up in white paper; 
a fan, abanico, is quite as necessary to all as it was among the 
Romans. The article is sold outside for a trifle, and is made of 
rude paper, stuck into a handle of common cane or stick, and the 
gift of one to his nut-brown querida is thought a delicate attention 
to her complexion from her swarthy swain ; at the same time the 
lower Salamander classes stand fire much better on these occasions 
than in action, and v.'ould rather be roasted fanless alive a la auto 
defe than miss these hot engagements. 

The place of slaughter, like the Abattoirs on the Continent, is 
erected outside the towns, in order to obtain space, and because 
horned animals when overdriven in crowded streets are apt to be 
ill-mannered, as may be seen every Smithfield market-day in the 
City, as the Lord Mayor well knows. 

The seats occupied by the mob are filled more rapidly than our 
shilling galleries, and the "gods" are equally noisy and impatient. 
The anxiety of the immortals, wishes to annihilate time and space 
and make bull-fanciers happy. Now his majesty the many reigns 
triumphantly, and this — church excepted — is the only public 



SEAT OF THE CLERGY. 303 

meeting allowed ; but even here, as on the Continent, the odious 
bayonet sparkles, and the soldier picket announces that innocent 
amusements are not free ; treason and stratagem are suspected by 
coward despots, when one sole thought of pleasure engrosses every 
one else. All ranks are now fused into one mass of homogeneous 
humanity; their good humor is contagious ; all leave their cares 
and sorrows at home, and enter with a gaiety of heart and a deter- 
mination to be amused, which defies wrinkled care ; many and 
not over-delicate are the quips and quirks bandied to and fro, with 
an eloquence more energetic than unadorned ; things and persons 
are mentioned to the horror of periphrastic euphuists ; the liberty 
of speech is perfect, and as it is all done quite in a parliamentary 
way none take offence. Those only who cannot get in are sad ; 
these rejected ones remain outside grinding their teeth, like the 
unhappy ghosts on the wrong side of the Styx, and listen anxiously 
to the joyous shouts of the thrice blessed within. 

At Seville a choice box in the shade and to the right of the 
president is allotted as the seat of honor to the canons of the cathe- 
dral, who attend in their clerical costumes ; and such days are 
fixed upon for the bull-fight as will not, by a long church service, 
prevent their coming. The clergy of Spain have always been 
the most uncompromising enemies of the stage, where they never 
go ; yet neither the cruelty nor profligacy of the amphitheatre has 
ever roused the zeal of their most elect or most fanatic; our pu-- 
ritans at least assailed the bear- bait, which induced the Cavalier 
Hudibras to defend them ; so our methodists denounced the bull- 
bait, which was therefore patronized by the Right Hon. W. Wind- 
ham, in the memorable debate May 24, 1802, on Mr. Dog Dent. 
The Spanish clergy pay due deference to bulls, both papal and 
quadruped ; they dislike being touched on this subject, and gene- 
rally reply " Es costumbre — it is the custom — siempre se ha prati- 
cado asi — it has always been done so, or son cosas de Espana, 
they are things of Spain" — the usual answer given as to every- 
thing which appears incomprehensible to strangers, and which 
they either can't account for, or do not choose. In vain did St. 
Isidore write a chapter against the amphitheatre — his chapter 
minds him not ; in vain did Alphonso the Wise forbid their at- 



304 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

tendance. The sacrifice of the bull has always been mixed up 
with the religion of old Rome and old and modern Spain, where 
they are classed among acts of charity, sirice they support the 
sick and wounded ; therefore all the sable countrymen of Loyola 
hold to the Jesuitical doctrine that the end justifies the means. 



COMMENCEMENT OF THE BULL-FIGHT. 305 



CHAPTER XXII. 

The Bull-fight — Opening of Spectacle — First Act, and Appearance of the 
Bull — The Picador — Bull Bastinado — The Horses, and their Cruel 
Treatment — Fire and Dogs — The Second Act — The Chulos and their 
Darts— The Third Act— The Matador— Death of the Bull— The Con- 
clusion, and Philosophy of the Amusement — Its Effect on Ladies. 

When the appointed much-wished-for hour is come, the Queen 
or the Corregidor takes the seat of honor in a central and splendid 
box, the mob having been previously expelled from the open 
arena ; this operation is called the desvejo, and is an amusing one, 
from the reluctance with which the great unwashed submit to be 
cleaned out. The proceedings open at a given signal with a 
procession of the combatants, who advance preceded by alguaciles, 
or officers of police, who are dressed in the ancient Spanish cos- 
tume, and are always at hand to arrest any one who infringes the 
severe laws against interruptions of the game. Then follow the 
picadores, or mounted horsemen, with their spears. Their original 
broad-brimmed Spanish hats are decorated with ribbons ; their 
upper man is clad in a gay silken jacket, whose lightness con- 
trasts with the heavy iron and leather protections of the legs, 
which give the clumsy look of a French jackbooted postillion. 
These defences are necessary when the horned animal charges 
home. Next follow the chulos, or combatants on foot, who are 
arrayed like Figaro at the opera, and have, moreover, silken 
cloaks of gay colors. The matadores, or killers, come behind 
them ; and, last of all, a gaily-caparisone.d team of mules, which 
is destined to drag the slaughtered bulls from the arena. As for 
the men, those who are killed on the spot are denied the burial- 
rites if they die without confession. Springing from the dregs 
of the people, they are eminently superstitious, and cover their 
breasts with relics, amulets, and papal charms. A clergyman, 



306 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

however, is in attendance with the sacramental wafer, in case su 
majestad may be wanted for a mortally- wounded combatant. 

Having made their obeisances to the chief authority, all retire, 
and the fatal trumpet sounds ; then the president throws the key 
of the gate by which the bull is to enter, to one of the alguaciles, 
who ought to catch it in his hat. When the door is opened, this 
worthy gallops away as fast as he can, amid tlie hoots and hisses 
of the mob, not because he rides like a constable, but from the 
instinctive enmity which his majesty the many bear to the finisher 
of the law, just as little birds love to mob a hawk ; now more 
than a thousand kind wishes are offered up tliat the bull may catch 
and toss him. The brilliant army of combatants in the mean- 
while separates like a bursting shell, and take up their respective 
places as regularly as our fielders do at a cricket-match. 

The play, which consists of three acts, then begins in earnest ; 
the drawing up of the curtain is a spirit-stirring moment ; all 
eyes are riveted at the first appearance of the bull on this stage, 
as no one can tell how he may behave. Let loose from his dark 
cell, at first he seems amazed at the novelty of his position ; torn 
from his pastures, imprisoned and exposed, stunned by the noise, 
he gazes an instant around at the crowd, the glare, and waving 
handkerchiefs, ignorant of ihe fate which inevitably awaits him. 
He bears on his neck a ribbon, " la devisa," which designates his 
breeder. The picador endeavors to snatch this off, to lay the 
trophy at his true love's heart. The bull is condemned without 
reprieve ; however gallant his conduct, or desperate his resistance, 
his death is the catastrophe ; the whole tragedy tends and hastens 
to this event, which, although it is darkly shadowed out before- 
hand, as in a Greek play, does not diminish the interest, since all 
the intermediate changes and chances are uncertain ; hence the 
sustained excitement, for the action may pass in an instant from 
the sublime to the ridiculous, from tragedy to farce. 

The bull no soonei; recovers his senses, than his splendid 
Achillean rage fires every limb, and with closing eyes and lowered 
horns he rushes at the first of the three picadores, who are drawn 
up to the left, close to the tahlas, or wooden barrier which walls 
round the ring. The horseman sits on his trembling Rosinante, 
with his pointed lance under his right arm, as stiff" and valiant as 



BULL BASTINADO. 307 



Don Quixote. If the animal be only of second-rate power and 
courage, the sharp point arrests the charge, for he well remembers 
this garrocha, or goad, by which herdsmen enforce discipline and 
inculcate instruction ; during this momentary pause a quick 
picador turns his horse to the left and gets free. The bulls, al- 
though irrational brutes, are not slow on their part in discovering 
when their antagonists are bold and dexterous, and particularly 
dislike figliting against the pricks. If they fly and will not face 
the picador, they are hooted at as despicable malefactors, who 
wish to defraud the public of their day's sport ; they are execrated 
as " goats," " cows," which is no compliment to bulls ; these cul- 
prits, moreover, are soundly beaten as they pass near the barrier 
by forests of sticks, with which the mob is provided for the nonce ; 
that of the elegant 7najo when going to tlie bull-fight, is very 
peculiar, and is called la chivata ; it is between four and five 
feet long, is taper, and terminates in a lump or knob, while the 
top is forked, into which the thumb is inserted ; it is also peeled or 
painted in alternate rings, black and white, or red and yellow. 
The lower classes content themselves with a common shillelah ; 
one with a knob at the end is preferred, as administering a more 
impressive whack ; their instrument is called porro, because heavy 
and lumbering. 

Nor is this bastinado uncalled for, since courage, address, and 
energy, are the qualities which ennoble tauromachia ; and when 
they are wanting, the butchery, with its many disgusting inci- 
dents, becomes revolting to the stranger, but to him alone ; for 
the gentler emotions of pity and mercy, which rarely soften any 
transactions of hard Iberia, are here banished altogether from 
the hearts of the natives ; they nov/ only have eyes for exhibi- 
tions of skill and valor, and scarcely observe those cruel inci- 
dents which engross and horrify the foreigner, who again on his 
part is equally blind to those redeeming excellencies, on which 
alone the attention of the rest of the spectators is fixed ; the 
tables ai'e now turned against the stranger, whose aesthetic mind's 
eye can see the poetry and beauty of the picturesque rags and 
tumbledown hamlets of Spaniards, and yet is blind to the poverty, 
misery, and want of civilization, to which alone the vision of the 



308 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

higher classed native is directed, on whose exalted soul the coming 
comforts of cotton are gleaming. 

When the bull is turned by the spear of the first picador, he 
passes on to the two other horsemen, who receive him with 
similar cordiality. If the animal be baffled by their skill and 
valor, stunning are the shouts of applause which celebrate the 
victory of the men : should he on the contrary charge home and 
overwhelm horses and riders, then — for the balances of praise and 
blame are held with perfect fairness — the fierce lord of the arena 
is encouraged with roars of compliments, Bravo toro, Viva toro, 
Well done, bull ! even a long life is wished to him by thousands 
who know that he must be dead in twenty minutes. 

A bold beast is not to be deterred by a trifling inch-deep 
wound, but presses on, goring the horse in the flank, and then 
gaining confidence and courage by victory, and " baptized in 
blood," a la Fran(;aise, advances in a career of honor, gore, and 
glory. The picador is seldom well mounted, for the horses are 
provided, at the lowest possible price, by a contractor, who runs 
the risk whether many or few are killed ; they indeed are the 
.only things economized in this costly spectacle, and are sorry, 
6roken-down hacks, fit only for the dog-kennel of an English 
squire, or carriage of a foreign Pair. This increases the danger 
to his rider ; in the ancient combats, the finest and most spirited 
horses were used ; quick as lightning, and turning to the touch, 
they escaped the deadly rush. The eyes of those poor horses 
which see and will not face death, are often bound over with a 
handkerchief, like criminals about to be executed ; thus they 
await blindfold the fatal horn thrust which is to end their life of 
misery. 

The picadors are subject to most severe falls ; the bull often 
tosses horse and rider in one ruin, and when his victim falls with 
a crash on the ground exhausts his fury upon his prostrate foes. 
The picador manages (if he can) to fall off" on the opposite side, 
in order that his horse may form a barrier and rampart between 
him and the bull. When these deadly struggles take place, when 
life hangs on a thread, the amphitheatre is peopled with heads ; 
every feeling of anxiety, eagerness, fear, horror, and delight is 
stamped on their expressive countenances ; if happiness is to be 



DEATH OF THE HORSE. 



estimated by quality, intensity, and concentration, rather than 
duration (and it is), these are moments of excitement more pre- 
cious to them, than ages of placid, insipid, uniform stagnation. 
Their feelings are wrought to a pitch, when the horse, maddened 
with wounds and terror, plunging in the death-struggle, the 
crimson seams of blood streaking his foam and sweat-whitened 
body, flies from the infuriated bull still pursuing, still goring ; 
then are displayed the nerve, presence of mind, and horsemanship 
of the dexterous and undismayed picador. It is in truth a piteous 
sight to see the poor mangled horses treading out their entrails, 
and yet gallantly carrying oflf their riders unhurt. But as in 
the pagan sacrifices, the quivering intestines, trembling with life, 
formed the most propitious omens — to what will not early habit 
familiarize ? — so the Spaniards are no more affected with the 
reality, than the Italians are with the abstract " tanti palpiti" of 
Rossini. 

The miserable horse, when dead, is dragged out, leaving a 
bloody furrow on the sand, as the river-beds of the arid plains 
of Barbary are marked by the crimson fringe of the flowering 
oleanders. A universal sympathy is shown for the horseman in 
these awful moments ; the men rise, the women scream, but all 
this soon subsides ; the picador, if wounded, is carried out and 
forgotten — " los muertos y idos no tienen amigos" — a new combat- 
ant fills up his gap, the battle rages — wounds and deaths are the 
order of the day — he is not missed ; and as new incidents arise, 
no pause is left for regret or reflection. We remember seeing at 
Granada a matador cruelly gored by a bull : he was carried away 
as dead, and his place immediately taken by his son, as coolly as a 
viscount succeeds to an earl's estate and title. Carnerero, the mu- 
sician, died while fiddling at a ball at Madrid, in 1838; neither 
the band nor the dancers stopped one moment. The boldness of 
the picadors is great. Francisco Sevilla, when thrown from his 
horse and lying under the dying animal, seized the bull, as he 
rushed at him, by his ears, turned round to the people, and 
laughed ; but, in fact, the long horns of the bull make it difficult 
for him to gore a man on the ground ; he generally bruises them 
with his nose ; nor does he remain long busied with his victim, 
since he is lured to fresh attacks by the glittering cloaks of the 



310 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

Chulos who come instantly to the rescue. At the same time we 
are free to confess, that few picadors, although men of bronze, 
can be said to have a sound rib in their body. When one is car- 
ried off apparently dead, but returns immediately mounted on a 
fresh horse, the applauding voice of the people outbellows a thou- 
sand bulls. If the wounded man should chance not to come back, 
ri'importe, however courted outside the Plaza, now he is ranked, 
like the gladiator was by the Romans, no higher than a beast, — 
or about the same as a slave under the perfect equality and man 
rights of the model republic. 

The poor horse is valued at even less, and he, of all the actors, ■ 
is the one in which Englishmen, true lovers and breeders of the 
noble animal, take the liveliest interest ; nor can any bull-fight- 
ing habit ever reconcile them to his sufferings and ill-treatment. 
The hearts of the picadors are as devoid of feeling as their iron- 
cased legs ; they only think of themselves, and have a nice tact 
in knowing when a wound is fatal or not. Accordingly, if the 
horn-thrust has touched a vital part, no sooner has the enemy 
passed on to a new victim, than an experienced picador quietly 
dismounts, takes off the saddle and bridle, and hobbles off like 
Richard, calling out for another horse— a horse ! The poor ani- 
mal, when stripped of these accoutrements, has a most rippish 
look, as it staggers to and fro, like a drunken man, until again 
attacked by the bull and prostrated : then it lies dying unnoticed 
in the sand, or, if observed, merely rouses the jeers of the mob ; 
as its tail quivers in the last agony of death, your attention is 
called to the fun ; Mira, mira, que cola ! The words and sight 
yet haunt us, for they were those that first caught our inexperi- 
enced ears and eyes at the first rush of the first bull of our first 
bullfight. While gazing on the scene in a total abstraction from 
the world, we felt our coat-tails tugged at, as by a greedily-biting 
pike ; we had caught, or, rather, were caught by a venerable 
harridan, whose quick perception had discovered a novice, whom 
her kindness prompted to instruct, for e'en in the ashes live the 
wonted fires ; a bright, fierce eye gleamed alive in a dead and 
shrivelled face, which evil passions had furrowed like the lava- 
seared sides of an extinct volcano, and dried up, like a cat starved 
behind a wainscot, into a thing of fur and bones, in which gender 



A COWARD BULL. 



was oblitei'ated — let her pass. If the wound received by the 
horse be not instantaneously mortal, the blood-vomiting hole is 
plugged up with tow, and the fountain of life stopped for a few 
minutes. If the flank is only partially ruptured, the protruding 
bowels are pushed back — no operation in hernia is half so well 
performed by Spanish surgeons — and the rent is sown up with a 
needle and pack-thread. Thus existence is prolonged for new 
tortures, and a few dollars are saved to the contractor ; but nei- 
ther death nor lacerations excite the least pity, nay, the bloodier 
and more fatal the spectacle, the more brilliant it is pronounced. 
It is of no use to remonstrate, or ask why the wounded sufferers 
are not mercifully killed at once ; the utilitarian Spaniard dislikes 
to see the order of the sport interrupted and spoilt by what he 
considers foreign squeamishness and nonsense, " Ah que f no vale 
na" — " Bah ! the beast is worth nothing ;" that is, provided he 
condescends to reply to your disparates with anything beyond a 
shrug of civil contempt. But national tastes will differ. " Sir," 
said an alderman to Dr. Johnson, " in attempting to listen to your 
long sentences, and give you a short answer, I have swallowed 
two pieces of green fat, without tasting the flavor. I beg you to 
let me enjoy my present happiness in peace and quiet." 

The bull is the hero of the scene ; yet, like Satan in the Para- 
dise Lost, he is foredoomed. Nothing can save him from a 
certain fate, which awaits all, whether brave or cowardly. The 
poor creatures sometimes endeavor in vain to escape, and have 
favorite retreats, to which they fly ; or they leap over the barrier, 
among the spectators, creating a vast hubbub and fun, upsetting 
water-carriers and fancy men, putting sentinels and old women 
to flight, and affording infinite delight to all who are safe in the 
boxes ; for, as Bacon remarks, " It is pleasant to see a battle from 
a distant hill." Bulls which exhibit this cowardlike activity are 
insulted : cries of " fuego" and " perros," fire and dogs, resound, 
and he is condemned to be baited. As the Spanish dogs have by 
no means the pluck of the English assailants of bulls, they are 
longer at the work, and many are made minced-meat of: — 
" Up to the stars the growling mastiffs fly, 
And add new monsters to the frighted sky." 

When at length the poor brute is pulled down, he is stabbed in 



312 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

the spine, as if he were only fit for the shambles, being a civilian 
ox, not a soldierlike bull. All these processes are considered as 
deadly insults ; and when more than one bull exhibits these cra- 
ven propensities to baulk nobler expectancies, then is raised the 
cry of " Cabestros al circo V tame oxen to the circus. This is a 
mortal affront to the empresa, or management, as it infers that it 
has furnished animals fitter for the plough than for the arena. 
The indignation of the mob is terrible ; for if disappointed in the 
blood of bulls, it will lap that of men. 

The bull is sometimes teased with stuffed figures, men of straw 
with leaded feet, which I'ise up again as soon as he knocks them 
down. An old author relates that in the time of Philip IV. " a 
despicable peasant was occasionally set upon a lean horse, and 
exposed to death." At other times, to amuse the populace, a 
monkey is tied to a pole in the arena. This art of ingeniously 
tormenting is considered as unjustifiable homicide by certain 
lively philosimious foreigners ; and, indeed, all these episodes 
are despised as irregular hors d'ceuvres, by the real and business- 
like amateur. 

After a due time the first act terminates : its length is uncer- 
tain. Sometimes it is most brilliant, since one bull has been 
known to kill a dozen horses, and clear the plaza. Then he is 
adored ; and as he roams, snorting about, lord of all he surveys, 
he becomes the sole object of worship to ten thousand devotees ; 
at the signal of the president, and sound of a trumpet, the second 
act commences with the performances of the chulo, a word which 
signifies, in the Arabic, a lad, a merryman, as at our fairs. The 
duty of this light division, these skirmishers, is to draw off the 
bull from the jncador when endangered, which they do with their 
colored cloaks ; iheir address and agility are surprising, they 
skim over the sand like glittering humming-birds, scarcely touch- 
ing the earth. They are dressed in short breeches, and without 
gaiters, just as Figaro is in the opera of the ' Barhiere de Sevig- 
lia.' Their hair is tied into a knot behind, and enclosed in the 
once universal silk net, the retecilla — the identical reticulum — 
of which so many instances are seen on ancient Etruscan vases. 
No bull-fighters ever arrive at the top of their profession without 
first excelling in this apprenticeship ; then they are taught how 



THE MATADOR AND THIRD ACT. 



to entice the bull to them, and learn his mode of attack, and how 
to parry it. The most dangerous moment is when these chulos 
venture out into the middle of the plaza, and are followed by the 
bull to the barrier. There is a small ledge on which they place 
their foot, and vault over, and a narrow slit in the boarding, 
through which they slip. Their escapes are marvellous, and they 
win by a neck ; they seem really sometimes, so close is the run, 
to be helped over the fence by the bull's horns. The chulos, in 
the second act, are the sole performers ; their part is to place 
small barbed darts, on each side of the neck of the bull, which 
are called handerillas, and are ornamented with cut paper of dif- 
ferent colors — gay decorations under which cruelty is concealed. 
The ianderiUeros go right up to him, holding the arrows at the shaft, 
and pointing the barbs at the bull ; just when the animal stoops 
to toss his foes, they jerk them into his neck and slip aside. The 
service appears to be more dangerous than it is, but it requires a 
quick eye, a light hand and foot. The barbs should be placed to 
correspond with each other exactly on both sides. Such pretty 
pairs are termed huenos pares by the Spaniards, and the feat is 
called coiffer le taureau by the French, who undoubtedly are 
first-rate perruquiers. Very often these arrows are provided with 
crackers, which, by means of a detonating powder, explode the 
moment they are affixed in the neck ; thence they are called 
handerillas de fuego. The agony of the scorched and tortured 
animal makes him plunge and bound like a sportive lamb, to the 
intense joy of the populace, while the fire, the smell of singed 
hair and roasted flesh, which our gastronome neighbors would 
call a bifstec a I'Espagnole, faintly recall to many a dark scowl- 
ing priest the superior attractions of his former amphitheatre, the 
auto defe. 

The last trumpet now sounds, the arena is cleared, and the 
matador, -the executioner, the man of death, stands before his 
victim alone ; on entering, he addresses the president, and throws 
his cap to the ground. In his right hand he holds a long straiglit 
Toledan blade ; in his left he waves the muleta, the red flag, or 
the engano, the lure, which ought not (so Romero laid down in 
our hearing) to be so large as the standard of a religious brother- 
hood, nor so small as a lady's pocket-handkerchief, but about 
PART n. 15 



314 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

a yard square. The color is always red, because that best irri- 
tates the bull and conceals blood. There is always a spare 
slayer at hand in case of accidents, which may happen in the 
best regulated bull-fights. 

The matador, from being alone, concentrates in himself all the 
interest as regards the human species, which was before frittered 
away among the many other combatants, as was the case in the 
ancient gladiatorial shows of Rome. He advances to the bull, 
in order to entice him towards him, or, in nice technical idiom, 
citarlo a la jurisdiccion del engaiio, to cite him into the jurisdic- 
tion of the trick ; in plain English, to subpoena him, or, as our 
ring would say, get his head into chancery. And this trial is 
nearly as awful, as the matador stands confronted with his foe, in 
the presence of inexorable witnesses, the bar and judges, who 
Avould rather see the bull kill Mm twice over, than that he should 
kill the bull contrary to the rules and practice of the court and 
tauromachian precedent. In these brief but trying moments the 
matador generally looks pale and anxious, as well he may, for 
life hangs on the edge of a razor, but he presents a fine picture 
of fixed purpose and concentration of moral energy. And Se- 
neca said truly that the world had seen as many examples of 
courage in gladiators, as in the Catos and Scipios. 

The matador endeavors rapidly to discover the character of the 
animal, and examines with eye keener than Spurzheim, his bumps 
of combativeness, destructiveness, and other amiable organs ; nor 
has he many moments to lose, where mistake is fatal, as one must 
die, and both may. Here, as Falstaff" says, there is no scoring, 
except on the pate. Often even the brute bull seems to feel that 
the last moinent is come, and pauses, when face to face in the 
deadly duel with his single opponent. Be that as it may, the 
contrast is very striking. The slayer is arrayed in a ball cos- 
tume, with no buckler but skill, and as if it were a pastime ; he 
is all coolness, the beast all rage ; and time it is to be collected, 
for now indeed knowledge is power, and could the beast reason, 
the man would have small chance. Meanwhile the spectators 
are wound up to a greater pitch of madness than the poor bull, 
who has undergone a long torture, besides continued excitement: 
he at this instant becomes a study for a Paul Potter ; his eyes 



CHARACTERS OF BULLS. 315 

flash fire — his inflated nostrils snort fury ; his body is covered 
with sweat and foam, or crimsoned with a glaze of gore streaming 
from gaping wounds. "Mira f que bel cuerpo de sangre f — look ! 
what a beauteous body of blood !" exclaimed the worthy old 
lady, who, as we before mentioned, was kind enough to point out 
to our inexperience the tit-bits of the treat, the pearls of greatest 
price. 

There are several sorts of toros, whose characters vary no less 
than those of men : sotne are brave and dashing, others are slow 
and heavy, others sly and cowardly. The matador foils and 
plays with the bull until he has discovered his disposition. The 
fundamental principle consists in the animal's mode of attack, the 
stooping his head and shutting his eyes, before he butts ; the se- 
cret of mastering him lies in distinguishing whether he acts on 
the offensive or defensive. Those which are fearless, and rush 
boldly on at once, closing their eyes, are the most easy to kill ; 
those which are cunning — which seldom go straight when they 
charge, but stop, dodge, and run at the man, not the flag, are the 
most dangerous. The interest of the spectators increases in pro- 
portion as the peril is great. 

Although fatal accidents do not often occur (and we ourselves 
have never seen a man killed, yet we have beheld some hundred 
bulls despatched), such events are always possible. At Tudela, 
a bull having killed seventeen horses, a picador named Blanco, 
and a banderillero, then leapt over the barriers, where he gored 
to death a peasant, and wounded many others. The newspapers 
simply headed the statement, '■'Accidents have happened." Pepe 
Illo, who had received thirty eight wounds in the wars, died, like 
Nelson, the hero's death. He was killed on the 11th of May, 
1801. He had a presentiment of his death, but said that he must 
do his duty. 

Every matador must be quick and decided. He must not let 
the bull run at the flag above two or three times ; the moral ten- 
sion of the multitudes is too strained to endure a longer suspense ; 
they vent their imptitience in jeers, noises, and endeavor by every 
possible manner to irritate him, and make him lose his temper, 
and perhaps life. Under such circumstances, Manuel Romero, 
who had murdered a man, was always saluted with cries of "-4 la 



316 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

Flaza de Cebada — to Tyburn." The populace absolutely loathe 
those who show the smallest white feather, or do not brave 
death cheerfully. 

There are many ways of killing the bull : the principal is 
when the matador receives him on his sword when charging ; 
then the weapon, which is held still and never thrust forward, 
enters just between the left shoulder and the blade-bone ; a firm 
hand, eye, and nerve, are essential, since in nothing is the real 
fancy so fastidious as in the exact nicety of the placing this 
death-wound. The bull very often is not killed at the first effort ; 
if not true, the sword strikes a bone, and then it is ejected high 
in air by the rising neck. When the blow is true, death is in- 
stantaneous, and the bull, vomiting forth blood, drops at the feet 
of his conqueror. It is indeed the triumph of knowledge over 
brute force ; all that was fire, fury, passion, and life, falls in an 
instant, still forever. The gay team of mules now enter, glit- 
tering with flags, and tinkling with bells ; the dead bull is car- 
ried off at a rapid gallop, which always delights the populace. 
The matador then wipes the hot blood from his sword, and bows to 
the spectators with admirable sang froid, who fling their hats into 
the arena, a compliment which he returns by throwing them 
back again (they are generally "shocking bad" ones); when 
Spain was rich, a golden, or at least a silver shower was rained 
down — ces beaux jours Id sont passes ; thanks to her kind 
neighbor. The poverty-stricken Spaniard, however, gives all he 
can, and lets the bullfighter dream the rest. As hats in Spain 
represent grandeeship, so these beavers, part and parcel of them- 
selves, are given as symbols of their generous hearts and souls ; 
and none but a huckster would go into minute details of value or 
condition. 

When a bull will not run at the fatal flag, or prays for pardon, 
he is doomed to a dishonorable death, as no true Spaniard begs 
for his own life, or spares that of his foe, when in his power ; now 
the media Luna is yelled for, and the call implies insult ; the use 
is equivalent to shooting traitors in the back : this half moon is 
the precise Oriental ancient and cruel instrument of houghing 
cattle ; moreover it is the exact old Iberian bident, or a sharp steel 
orescent placed on a long pole. The cowardly blow is given from 



CONCLUSION OF BULL-PIGHT. 317 

behind ; and when the poor beast is crippled by dividing the sinew 
of his leg, and crawls along in agony, an assistant pierces with a 
pointed dagger the spinal marrow, which is the usual method of 
slaughtering cattle in Spain by the butcher. To perform all these 
vile operations is considered beneath the dignity of the inalador ; 
some, however, will kill the bull by plunging the point of their 
sword in the vertebrae, as the danger gives dignity to the diffi- 
cult feat. 

Such is a single bull-fight ; each of which is repeated eight 
times with succeeding bulls, the excitement of the multitude 
rising with each indulgence ; after a short collapse new desires 
are roused by fresh objects, the fierce sport is renewed, which 
night alone can extinguish ; nay, often when royalty is present, a 
ninth bull is clamored for, which is always graciously granted by 
the nominal monarch's welcome sign, the pulling his royal ear ; 
in truth here the mob is autocrat, and his majesty the many will 
take no denial ; the bull-fight terminates when the day dies like 
a dolphin, and the curtain of heaven hung over the bloody show, 
is incarnadined and crimsoned ; this glorious finish is seen in full 
perfection at Seville, where the flaza from being unfinished is 
open toward the cathedral, which furnishes a Moorish distance to 
the picturesque foreground. On particular occasions this side is 
decorated with flags. When the blazing sun setting on the red 
Giralda tower, lights up its fair proportions like a pillar of fire, 
the refreshing evening breeze springs up, and the flagging ban- 
ners wave in triumph over the concluding spectacle ; then when 
all is come to an end, as all things human must, the congregation 
depart, with rather less decorum than if quitting a church ; all 
hasten to sacrifice the rest of the night to Bacchus and Venus, 
with a passing homage to the knife, should critics differ too hotly 
on the merits of some particular thrust of the bull-fight. 

To conclude ; the minds of men, like the House of Commons 
in 1802, are divided on the merits of the bull-fight ; the Wilber- 
forces assert (especially foreigners, who, notwithstanding, seldom 
fail to sanction the arena by their presence) that all the best feel- , 
ings are blunted — that idleness, extravagance, cruelty, and fero- 
city are promoted at a vast expense of human and animal life by 
these pastimes ; the Windhams contend that loyalty, courage, 



318 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

presence of mind, endurance of pain, and contempt of death, are 
inculcated — that, while the theatre is all illusion, the opera all 
effeminacy, these manly, national games are all truth, and in the 
words of a native eulogist " elevate the soul to those grandiose 
actions of valor and heroism which have long proved the Span- 
iards to be the best and bravest of all nations." 

The efficacy of such sports for sustaining a martial spirit was 
disproved by the degeneracy of the Romans at the time when 
bloody spectacles were most in vogue ; nor are bravery and hu- 
manity the characteristics of the bull-fighting Spaniards in the 
collective. We ourselves do not attribute their " merciless skiv- 
ering and skewering," their flogging and murdering women, to 
the bull-fight, the practical result of which has been overrated 
and misunderstood. Cruel it undoubtedly is, and perfectly con- 
genial to the inherent, inveterate ferocity of Iberian character, 
but it is an effect rather than a cause — with doubtless some recip- 
rocating action ; and it may be questioned, whether the original 
bull-fight had not a greater tendency to humanize, than the Olym- 
pic games ; certainly the Fiesta real of the feudal ages combined 
the associated ideas of religion and loyalty, while the chivalrous 
combat nurtured a nice sense of personal honor and a respectful 
gallantry to women, which were unknown to the polished Greeks 
or warlike Romans ; and many of the finest features of Spanish 
character have degenerated since the discontinuance of the ovi- 
ginal fight, which was more bloody and fatal than the present 
one. 

The Spaniards invariably bring forvp'ard our boxing-matches 
in self-justification, as if a tu quoque could be so ; but it must 
alw^ays be remembered in our excuse that these are discounte- 
nanced by the good and respectable, and legally stigmatized as 
breaches of the peace ; although disgraced by beastly drunken- 
ness, brutal vulgarity, ruinous gambling and betting, from which 
the Spanish arena is exempt, as no bull yet has been backed to 
kill so many horses or not ; our matches, however, are based on a 
spirit o? fair play which forms no principle of the Punic politics, 
warfare, or bull-fighting of Spain. The Plaza there is patronized 
by church and state, to wl)om, in justice, the responsibility of evil 
consequences must be referred. The show is conducted with great 



PHILOSOPHY OF THE BULL-FIGHT. 



ceremonial, combining many elements of poetry, the beautiful 
and sublime ; insomuch that a Spanish author proudly says : 
" When the countless assembly is honored by the presence of 
our august monarchs, the world is lost in admiration at the majes- 
tic spectacle afforded by the happiest people in the world, enjoy- . 
ing with rapture an exhibition peculiarly their own, and offering 
to their idolized sovereigns the due homage of the truest and 
most refined loyalty ;" and it is impossible to deny the magnificent 
coup d'cEtl of the assembled thousands. Under such conflicting 
circumstances, we turn away our eyes during moments of pain- 
ful detail which are lost in the poetical ferocity of the whole, for 
the interest of the tragedy of real death is undeniable, irresistible 
and all absorbing. 

The Spaniards seem almost unconscious of the cruelty of those 
details which are most offensive to a stranger. They are recon- 
ciled by habit, as we ai'e to the bleeding butchers' shops which 
disfigure our gay streets, and which if seen for the first time would 
be inexpressibly disgusting. The feeling of the chase, that rem- 
nant of the savage, rules in the arena, and mankind has never 
been nice or tender-hearted in regard to the sufferings of animals 
when influenced by the destructive propensities. In England no 
sympathy is shown for game, — fish, flesh, or fowl ; nor for vermin 
— stoats, kites, or poachers. The end of the sport is — death ; the 
aixiusement is the playing, the Jine run, as the prolongation of 
animal suffering is termed in the tender vocabulary of the Nim- 
rods ; the pang of mortal sufferance is not regulated by the size 
of the victim ; the bull moreover is always put at once out of his 
misery, and never exposed to the thousand lingering deaths of the 
poor wounded hare ; therefore we must not see a toro in Spanish 
eyes and wink at the fox in our own, nor 

" Compound for vices we're inclined to 
By damning those we have no mind to." 

It is not clear that animal suffering on the whole predominates 
over animal happiness. The bull roams in ample pastures, 
through a youth and manhood free from toil, and when killed in 
the plaza only anticipates by a few months the certain fate of the 
imprisoned, over-labored, mutilated ox. 



320 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

In Spain, where capital is scanty, person and property inse- 
cure (evils not quite corrected since the late democratic reforms), 
no one would adventure on the speculation of breeding cattle on a 
large scale, where the return is so distant, without the certain 
demand and sale created by the amphitheatre ; and as a small 
proportion only of the produce possess the requisite qualificatione, 
the surplus and females go to the plough and market, and can be 
sold cheaper from the profit made on the bulls. Spanish political 
economists proved that many valuable animals were wasted in the 
arena — but their theories vanished before the fact, that the supply 
of cattle was rapidly diminished when bull-fights were suppressed. 
Similar results take place as regards the breed of horses, though 
in a minor degree ; those, moreover, which are sold to the Plaza 
would never be bought by any one else. With respect to the loss 
of human life, in no land is a man worth so little as in Spain ; and 
more English aldermen are killed indirectly by turtles, than Anda- 
lucian picadors directly by bulls : while, as to time, these exhibi- 
tions always take place on holidays, which even industrious 
Britons bouse away occasionally in pothouses, and idle Spaniards 
invariably smoke out in sunshiny doUefar niente. The attend- 
ance, again, of idle spectators prevents idleness in the numerous 
classes employed directly and indirectly in getting up and carry- 
ing out this expensive spectacle. 

It is poor and illogical philosophy to judge of foreign customs 
by our own habits, prejudices, and conventional opinions ; a cold, 
unprepared, calculating stranger comes witiiout the freemasonry 
of early associations, and criticises minutige which are lost on the 
natives in their enthusiasm and feeling for the whole. He is 
horrified by details to which the Spaniards have become as accus- 
tomed as hospital nurses, whose finer sympathetic emotions of 
pity are deadened by repetition. 

A most diflicult thing it is to change long-established usages and 
customs with which we are familiar from our early days, and which 
have come down to us connected with many fond remembrances. 
We are slow to suspect any evil or harm in such practices ; we 
dislike to look the evidence of facts in the face, and shrink from 
a conclusion which would require the abandonment of a recrea- 
tion, which we have long regarded as innocent, and in which we, 



PHILOSOPHY OF THE BULL-FIGHT. 321 

as well as our parents before us, have not scrupled to indulge. 
Children, Vage sans pitie, do not speculate on cruelty, whether 
in bull-baiting or bird's-nesting, and Spaniards are brought up to 
the bull-fight from their infancy, when they are too simple to 
speculate on abstract questions, but associate with the Plaza all 
their ideas of reward for good conduct, of finery and holiday ; in a 
land where amusements are fe\^— they catch the contagion of 
pleasure, and in their yonng bias of imitation approve of what 
is approved of by their parents. They return to their homes 
unchanged — playful, timid, or serious, as before : their kindly, 
social feelings are uninjured : and where is the filial or parental 
bond more affectionately cherished than in Spain — where are the 
noble courtesies of life, the kind, considerate, self-respecting de- 
meanor so exemplified as in Spanish society ? 

The successive feelings experienced by most foreigners are ad- 
miration, compassion, and weariness of the flesh. The first will 
be readily understood, as it will that the horses' sufferings cannot 
be beheld by novices v.'ithout compassion : " In troth it was more 
a pittie than a delight," wrote the herald of Lord Nottingham. 
This feeling, however, regards the animals who are forced into 
wounds and death ; the men scarcely excite much of it, since they 
willingly court the danger, and have therefore no right to com- 
plain. These heroes of low life are applauded, well paid, and 
their risk is more apparent than real ; our British feelings of fair 
play make us side rather with the poor bull who is overmatched ; 
we respect the gallantry of his unequal defence. Such must al- 
ways be the effect produced on those not bred and brought up to 
such scenes. So Livy relates that, when the gladiatorial shows 
were first introduced by the Romans into Asia, the natives were 
more frightened than pleased, but by leading them on from sham- 
fights to real, they became as fond of them as the Romans. The 
predominant sensation experienced by ourselves was iore, the 
same thing over and over again, and too much of it. But that is 
the case with everything in Spain, where processions and profes- 
sions are interminable. The younger Pliny, who was no ama- 
teur, complained of the eternal sameness of seeing what to have 
seen once, was enough ; just as Dr. Johnson, when he witnessed 
a horse-race, observed that he had not met with such a proof of 
15* 



322 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

the paucity of human pleasures as in the popularity of such a 
spectacle. But the life of Spaniards is uniform, and their sensa- 
tions, not being blunted by satiety, are intense. Their bull-fight 
to them is always new and exciting, since the more the toresque 
intellect is cultivated the greater the capacity for enjoyment ; 
they see a thousand minute beauties in the character and conduct 
of the combatants, which escapa|the superficial unlearned glance 
of the uninitiated. 

Spanish ladies, against whom every puny scribbler shoots his 
petty barbed arrow, are relieved from the infliction of ennui, by 
tne never-flagging, evei'-sustained interest, in being admired. 
They have no abstract nor Pasiphaic predilections ; they were 
taken to the bull-fight before they knew their alphabet, or what 
love was. Nor have we heard that it has ever rendered them 
particularly cruel, save and except some of the elderly and 
tougher lower-classed females. The younger and more tender 
scream and are dreadfully affected in all real moments of danger, 
in spite of their long familiarity. Their grand object, after all, is 
not to see the bull, but to let themselves and their dresses be seen. 
The better classes generally interpose their fans at the most pain- 
ful incidents, and certainly show no want of sensibility. The 
lower orders of females, as a body, behave quite as respectably 
as those of other countries do at executions, or other dreadful 
scenes, where they crowd with their babies. The case with 
English ladies is far different. They have heard the bull-fight 
not praised from their childhood, but condemned ; they see it for 
the first time when grown up ; curiosity is perhaps their leading 
feature in sharing an amusement, of which they have an indis- 
tinct idea that pleasure will be mixed with pain. The first sight 
delights them ; a flushed, excited cheek, betrays a feeling that 
they are almost ashamed to avow ; but as the bloody tragedy pro- 
ceeds, they get frightened, disgusted, and disappointed. Few are 
able to sit out more than one course, and fewer ever re-enter the 
amphitheatre — 

" The heart that is soonest awake to the flower 
Is always the first to be touched by the thorn." 

Probably a Spanish woman, if she could be placed in precisely 



PHILOSOPHY OF THE BULL-FIGHT. 



the same condition, would not act very differently, and some- 
thing of a similar test would be to bring her, for the first lime, 
to an English boxing-match. Be this as it may, far from us 
and from our friends be that frigid philosophy, which would 
infer that their bright eyes, darting the shafts of Cupid, will 
glance one smile the less from witnessing these more merciful 
haifiderillas. 



324 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

Spanisli Theatre ; Old and Modem Drama ; Arrangement of Playhouses — 
The Henroost — The Fandango ; National Dances — A Gipsy Ball — Ital- 
" ian Opera — National Songs and Guitars. 

Having seen a bull-fight, the sight of Spain, those who only- 
wish to pass time agreeably cannot be too quick in getting their 
passports vised for Naples. A pleasant country life, according to 
our notions, in Spain, is a thing that is not ; and the substitute is 
but a Bedouin Oriental makeshift existence, which, amusing 
enough for a spurt, will not do in the long run. Nor is life much 
better in the towns ; those in the inland provinces have a convent- 
like, dead, old-fashioned look about them, which petrifies a lively 
person ; nay even an artist when he has finished his sketches, 
is ready to commit suicide from sheer Bore, the genius of the 
locality. Madrid itself is but an unsocial, second-rate, inhospita- 
ble city ; and when the traveller has seen the Museum, been to 
the play, and walked on the eternal roundabout Prado, the sooner 
he shakes the dust off his feet the better. The maritime seaports, 
as in the East, from being frequented by the foreigner, are a trifle 
more cosmopolitan, cheerful, and amusing ; but generally speak- 
ing, public amusements are rare throughout this semi-Moro land. 
The calm contemplation of a cigar, and the dolce far niente of 
siestose quiet indolence with unexciting twaddle, suffice ; while to 
some nations it is a pain to be out of pleasure, to the Spaniard it 
is a pleasure to be out of painful exertion : existence is happiness 
enough of itself; and as for occupation, all desire only to do 
to-day what they did yesterday and will do to-morrow, that is 
nothing. Thus life slips away in a dreamy, listless routine, the 
serious business of love-making excepted ; leave me, leave me, 
to repose and tobacco. When however awake, the Alameda, or 
church-show, the bull-fight, and the rendezvous, are the chief re- 
laxations. These will be best enjoyed in the Southern provinces, 



THE THEATRE. 325 



the land also of the song and dance, of bright suns and eyes, and 
not the largest female feet in the world. 

The theatre, which forms elsewhere such an important item in 
passing the stranger's evening, is at a low ebb in Spain, although, 
as everybody is idle, and man is not worn out by business and 
money-making all day, it might be supposed to be just the 
thing ; but it is somewhat too expensive for the general poverty. 
Those again who for forty years have had real tragedies at home, 
lack that superabundance of felicity, which will pay for the 
luxury of fictitious grief abroad. In truth the drama in Spain 
was, like most other matters, the creature of an accident and of a 
period ; patronized by the pleasure-loving Philip IV., it blos- 
somed in the sunshine of his smile, languished when that was 
withdrawn, and was unable to resist the steady hostility of tho 
clergy, who opposed this rival to their own religious spectaclei? 
and church melodramas, from which the opposition stage spi'ung. 
Nor are their primitive mediaeval Mysteries yet obsolete, since 
we have beheld them acted in Spain at Easter time ; then and 
there sacred subjects, grievously profaned to Protestant eyes, 
were gazed on by the pleased natives with too sincere and simple 
faith even to allow a suspicion of the gross absurdity ; but every- 
where in Spain, the spiritual has been materialized, and the 
divine degraded to the human in churches and out; the clergy 
attacked the stage, by denying burial to the actors when dead, 
who, when alive, were not allowed to call themselves "Don," 
the cherished title of every Spaniard. Naturally, as no one of 
this self-respecting nation ever will pursue a despised profession 
if he can help it, few have chosen to make themselves vagabonds 
by Act of Parliament, nor has any Garrick or Siddons ever 
arisen among them to beat down prejudices by public and private 
virtues. 1 

Even in this 19th century, confessors of families forbade the 
women and children's even passing through the sti'eet where " a 
temple of Satan" was reared ; mendicant monks placed them- 
selves near the playhouse doors at night, to warn the headlong 
against the bottomless pit, just as our methodists on the day of the 
Derby distribute tracts at turnpikes against " sweeps" and racing. 
The monks at Cordova succeeded in 1823 in shutting up the 



326 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

theatre, because the nuns of an opposite convent observed the 
devil and his partners dancing fandangos on the roof. Ahhough 
monks have in their turn been driven off the Spanish boards, the 
national drama has almost made its exit with them. The genuine 
old stage held up the mirror to Spanish nature, and exhibited real 
life and manners. Its object was rather to amuse than to instruct, 
and like literature, its sister exponent of existing nationality, it 
showed in action what the picaresque novels detailed in descrip- 
tion. In both the haughty Hidalgo was the hero; cloaked and 
armed with long rapier and mustachios, he stalked on the scene, 
made love and fought as became an old Castilian whom Chai'les 
V. had rendered the terror and the model of Europe. Spain, 
then, like a successful beauty, took a proud pleasure in looking 
at herself in the glass, but now that things are altered, she blushes 
at beholding a portrait of her grey hairs and wrinkles ; her flag 
is tattered, her robes are torn, and she shrinks from the humilia- 
tion of truth. If she appears on the theatre at all, it is to revive 
long by-gone days — to raise the Cid, the great Captain, or Pizarro, 
from their graves ; thus blinking the present, she forms hopes for 
a bright future by the revival and recollections of a glorious past. 
Accordingly plays representing modern Spanish life and things, 
are scouted by pit and boxes as vulgar and misplaced ; nay, even 
Lope de Vega is now known merely by name ; his comedies are 
banished from the boards to the shelves of book-cases, and those 
for the most part out of Spain. He has paid the certain penalty 
of his national localism, of his portraying men, as a Spanish va- 
riety, rather than a universal species. He has strutted his hour 
on the stage, is heard no more ; while his contemporary, the bard 
of Avon, who drew mankind and human nature, the same in all 
times and places, lives in the human heart as immortal as the 
principle on which his influence is founded. 

In the old Spanish plays, the imaginary scenes were no less 
full of intrigue than were the real streets ; then the point of honor 
was nice, women were immured in jealous hareems, and access 
to them, which is easier now, formed the difficulty of lovers. The 
curiosity of the spectators was kept on tenter-hooks, to see how the 
parties could get at each other, and out of the consequent scrapes. 
These imbroglios and labyrinths exactly suited a pays de l'iinpr4vu, 



MODERN STAGE. 327 



where things turn out just as is the least likely to be calculated 
on. The progress of the drama of Spain was as full of action and 
energy as that of France was of dull description and declamation. 
The Bourbon succession, which ruined the genuine bull-fight, de- 
stroyed the national drama also ; a flood of unities, rules, stilted 
nonsense, and conventionalities poured over the astonished and 
affrighted Pyrenees : now the stage, like the arena, was con- 
demned by critics, whose one-idead civilization could see but one 
class of excellence, and that only through a lorgnette ground in 
the Palais Royal. Calderon was pronounced to be as great a barba- 
rian as Shakspere, and this by empty pretenders who did not under- 
stand one word of either : — and now again, at this second Bourbon 
irruption, France has become the model to that very nation from 
whom her Corneilles and Molieres pilfered many a plume, which 
aided them to soar to dramatic fame. Spain is now reduced to 
the sad shift of borrowing from her pupil those very arts which 
she herself once taught, and her best comedies and farces are but 
poor translations from Mons. Scribe and other scribes of the vaude- 
ville. Her theatre, like everything else, has sunk into a pale 
copy of her dominant neighbor, and is devoid alike of originality, 
interest, and nationality. 

It was from Spain also that Europe copied the arrangement of 
the modern theatre ; the first playhouses there were merely open 
covered court-yards, after the classical fashion of Thespis. The 
fatio became the pit, into which women were never admitted. 
The rich sat at the windows of the houses round the court; and 
■as almost all these in Spain are defended by iron gratings, the 
French took their term, loge grilUe, for a private box. In the 
centre of the house, above the pit, was a sort of large lower gal- 
lery, which was called la tertulia, a name given in those times to 
the quarter chosen by the erudite, among whom at that period it 
was the fashion to quote TertuUan. The women, excluded from 
the pit, had a place reserved for themselves, into which no males 
were allowed to enter — a peculiarity based in the Gotho-Moro 
separation of the sexes. This feminine preserve was termed la 
cazuela, the stewing pan, or la olla, the pipkin, from the hodge- 
potch admixture, as it was open to all ranks ; it was also called 
''lajaula de las mugeres," the women's cage — " el gallinero,'' the 



328 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

henroost. All went there, as to church, dressed in black, and 
with mantillas. This dark assemblage of- sable tresses, raven 
hair, and blacker eyes, looked at the first glance like the gallery 
of a nunnery ; that was, however, a simile of dissimilitude, for, 
let there be but a moment's pause in the business of the play, then 
arose such a cooing and cawing in this rookery of turtle-doves, — 
such an ogling, such a flutter of mantillas, such a rustling of silks, 
such telegraphic workings of fans, such an electrical communica- 
tion with the Seiiores below, who looked up with wistful glances 
on the dark clustering vineyard so tantalizingly placed above their 
reach, as effectually dispelled all ideas of seclusion, sorrow, or 
mortification. This unique and charming pipkin has been just 
now done away with at Madrid, because, as there is no such thing 
at Convent Garden, or Le Fran9ais, it might look antiquated and 
un-European. 

The theatres of S"pain are small, although called Coliseums, 
and ill-contrived ; the wardrobe and properties are as scanty as 
those of the spectators, Madrid itself not excepted ; when filled, 
the smells are ultra-continental, and resemble those which pre- 
vail at Paris, when the great people is indulged with a gratis re- 
presentation ; in the Spanish theatres no neutralizing incense is 
used, as is done by the wise clergy in their churches. If the 
atmosphere were analyzed by Faraday, it would, be found to con- 
tain equal portions of stale cigar smoke and fresh garlic fume. 
The lighting, except on those rare occasions when the theatre 
is illuminated, as it is called, is just intended to make darkness 
visible, and there was no seeing into the henroosts towards 
which the eyes and glasses of the foxite pittites were vainly ele- 
vated. 

Spanish tragedy, even when the Cid spouts, is wearisome ; the 
language is stilty, the declamation ranting, French, and unna- 
tural ; passion is torn to rags. The sainetes, or farces, are 
broad, but amusing, and are perfectly well acted ; the national 
ones are disappearing, but when brought out are the true vehi- 
cles of the love for sarcasm, satire, and intrigue, the mirth and 
mother-wit, for which Spaniards are so remarkable ; and no peo- 
ple are more essentially serio-comic and dramatic than they are, 
whether in Venta, Plaza, or church ; the actors in their amusing 



THE BOLERO. 



farces cease to be actors, and the whole appears to be a scene of 
real life ; there generally is a gracioso or favorite wag of the 
Liston and Keeley species, who is on the best terms M'ith the 
pit, who says and does what he likes, interlards the dialogue 
with his own witticisms, and creates a laugh before he even 
comes on. 

The orchestra is very indifferent ; the Spaniards are fond 
enough of what they call music, whether vocal or instrumental ; 
but it is Oriental, and most unlike the exquisite melody and per- 
formances of Italy or Germany. In the same manner, although 
they have footed it to their rude songs from time immemorial, 
they have no idea of the grace and elegance of the French ballet ; 
the moment they attempt it they become ridiculous, for they are 
bad imitators of their neighbors, whether in cuisine, language or 
costume ; indeed a Spaniard ceases to be a Spaniard in proportion 
as he becomes an Afrancesado ; they take, in their jumpings and 
chirpings, after the grasshopper, having a natural genius for the 
bota and bolero. The great charm of the Spanish theatres is 
their own national dance — matchless, unequalled, and inimitable, 
and only to be performed by Andalucians. This is la salsa de 
la comedia, the essence, the cream, the sauce piquante of the 
night's entertainments ; it is attempted to be described in everj 
book of travels — for who can describe sound or motion? — it must 
be seen. However languid the house, laughable the tragedy, or 
serious the comedy, the sound of the castanet awakens the most 
listless ; thq sharp spirit-stirring click is heard behind the scenes 
— the effect is instantaneous — it creates life under the ribs of 
death — it silences the tongues of countless women — on n'ecoute 
que le ballet. The curtain draws up ; the bounding pair dart 
forward from the opposite sides, like two separated lovers, who, 
after long search, have found each other again, nor do they seem 
to think of the public, but only of each other ; the glitter of the 
gossamer costume of the Majo and Maja seems invented for this 
dance — the sparkle of the gold lace and silver filigree adds to the 
lightness of their motions ; the transparent, form designing saya 
of the lady, heightens the charms of a faultless syinmetry which 
it fain would conceal ; no cruel stays fetter her serpentine flex- 
ibility. They pause — bend forward an instant — prove their sup- 



330 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

pie limbs and arms ; the band strikes up, they turn fondly to- 
wards each other, and start into life. What exercise displays 
the ever-varying charms of female grace, and the contours 
of manly form, like this fascinating dance ? The accompani- 
ment of the Castanet gives employment to their upraised arms. 
C'est, say the French, le pantomime d'amour. The enamored 
youth persecutes the coy, coquettish maiden ; who shall describe 
the advance — her timid retreat, his eager pursuit, like Apollo 
chasing Daphne ? Novi^ they gaze on each other, now on the 
ground ; now all is life, love, and action ; now there is -a pause 
— they stop motionless at a moment, and grow into the earth. It 
carries all before it. There is a truth which overpowers the 
fastidious judgment. Away, then, with the studied grace of the 
French danseuse, beautiful but artificial, cold and selfish as is 
the flicker of her love, compared to the real impassioned abandon 
of the daughters of the South ! There is nothing indecent in this 
dance ; no one is tired or the worse for it ; indeed its only fault 
is its being too short, for as Moliere says, " Un ballet ne saurait 
etre trop long, pourvu que la morale soit bonne, et la metaphy- 
sique bien entendue." Notwithstanding this most profound re- 
mark, the Toledan clergy out of mere jealousy wished to put the 
bolero down, on the pretence of immorality. The dancers were 
allowed in evidence to " give a view" to the court : when they 
began, the bench and bar showed symptoms of restlessness, and 
at last, casting aside gowns and briefs, both joined, as if tarantula- 
bitten, in the irresistible capering — Verdict, for the defendants 
with costs. 

This Baile nacional, however adored by foreigners, is alas ! 
beginning to be looked down upon by those ill-advised seiioras 
who wear French bonnets in the boxes, instead of Spanish man- 
tillas. The dance is suspected of not being European or civil- 
ized ; its best chance of surviving is, the fact that it is positively 
fashionable on the boards of London and Paris. These national 
exercises are however firmly rooted among the peasants and 
lower classes. The different provinces, as they have a different 
language, costume, &c., have also their own peculiar local dances, 
which, like their wines, fine arts, relics, saints and sausages, can 
only be really relished on the spots themselves. 



PRIVATE DANCES. 



The dances of the better classes of Spaniards in private life 
are much the same as in other parts of Europe, nod' is either sox 
particularly distinguished by grace in this amusement, to which, 
however both are much addicted. It is not, however, yet thought 
to be a proof of bon ton to dance as badly as possible, and with 
the greatest appearance of bore, that appendage of the so-called 
gay world. These dances, as everything national is excluded, 
are without a particle of interest to any one except the performers. 
An extempoi'e ball, which might be called a carpet-dar)ce, if 
there were any, forms the common conclusion of a winter's leriu- 
lia, or social meetings, at which no great attention is paid either 
to music, costume, or Mr. Gunter. Here English country dances, 
French quadrilles, and German waltzes are the order of the night ; 
everything Spanish being excluded, except the flentiful want of 
good fiddling, lighting, dressing, and eating, which never distresses 
the company, for the frugal, temperate, and easily-pleased Span- 
iard enters with schoolboy heart and soul into the reality of any 
holiday, which being joy sufficient of itself lacks no artificial en- 
hancement. 

Dancing at all is a novelty among Spanish ladies, which was 
introduced with the Bourbons. As among the Romans and Moors, 
it was before thought undignified. Performers were hired to amuse 
the inmates of the Christian hareem ; to mix and change hands 
with men was not to be thought of for an instant ; and to this day 
few Spanish women shake hands with men — the shock is too elec- 
trical ; they only give them with their hearts, and for good. 

The lower classes, who are a trifle less particular, and among 
whom, by the blessing of Santiago, the foreign dancing master is 
not abroad, adhere to the primitive steps and tunes of their Orien- 
tal forefathers. Their accompaniments are the " tabret and the 
harp ;" the guitar, the tambourine, and the castanet. The 
essence of these instruments is to give a noise on being beaten. 
Simple as it may seem to play on the latter, it is only attained by 
a quick ear and finger, and great practice ; accordingly these 
delights of the people are always in their hands ; practice makes 
perfect, and many a performer, dusky as a Moor, rivals Ethiopian 
" Bones" himself; they take to it before their alphabet, since the 
very urchins in the street begin to learn by snapping their fingers, 



332 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

or clicking together two shells or bits of slate, to which they 
dance ; in truth, next to noise, some capering seems essential, as 
the safety-valve exponents of what Cervantes describes, the 
" bounding of the soul, the bursting of laughter, the restlessness of 
the body, and the quicksilver of the five senses." It is the rude 
sport of people who dance from the necessity of motion, the relief 
of the young, the healthy, and the joyous to whom life is of itself 
a blessing, and who like skipping kids, thus give vent to their su- 
perabundant lightness of heart and limb. Sancho, a true Man- 
chegan, after beholding the strange saltatory exhibitions of his 
master, in somewhat an incorrect ball costume, professes his 
ignorance of such elaborate dancing, but maintained that for a 
zapateo, a knocking of shoes, none could beat him. Unchanged 
as are the instruments, so are the dancing propensities of Span- 
iards. Ail night long, three thousand years ago, say the histori- 
ans, did they dance and sing, or rather jump and yell, to these 
" howlings of Tarshish ;" and so far from its being a fatigue, they 
kept up the ball all night by way of resting. 

The Gallicians and Asturians retain among many of their 
aboriginal dances and tunes, a wild Pyrrhic jumping, which, with 
their shillelah in hand, is like the Gaelic Ghillee Galium, and 
is the precise Iberian armed dance which Hannibal had performed 
at the impressive funeral of Gracchus. These quadrille figures 
are intricate and warlike, requiring, as was said of the Iberian 
performances, much leg-activity, for which the wiry sinewy 
active Spaniards are still remarkable. These are the Morris 
dances imported from Gallicia by our John of Gaunt, who sup- 
posed they were Moorisli. The peasants still dance them in their 
best costumes, to the antique castanet, pipe, and tambourine. 
They are usually directed by a master of the ceremonies, or what 
is equivalent, a parti-colored fool, Modqo; ; which may be the 
etymology of Morris. 

These co?nparsas, or national quadrilles, were the hearty wel- 
come which the peasants were paid to give to the sons of Louis 
Philippe at Vitoria ; such, too, we have often beheld gratis, and 
performed by eight men, with castanets in their hands, and to the 
tune of a fife and drum, while a Bastonero, or leader of the band, 
clad in gaudy raiment like a pantaloon, directed the rustic ballet ; 



GADITANIAN GIRLS. 



around were grouped payesas y aldeanas, dressed in tight bodices, 
with panuelos on their heads, their hair hanging down behind in 
trensas, and their necks covered with blue and coral beads ; the 
men bound up their long locks with red hankerchiefs, and danced 
in their shirts, th^ sleeves of which were puckered up with bows 
of different colored ribands, crossed also over the back and breast, 
and mixed with scapularies and small prints of saints ; their 
drawers were white, and full as the hragas of the Valencians, 
like whom they wore alpargatas, or hemp sandals laced with blue 
strings ; the figure of the dance was very intricate, consisting of 
much circling, turning, and jumping, and accompanied with loud 
cries of viva ! at each change of evolution. These comparsas 
are undoubtedly a remnant of the original Iberian exhibitions, in 
which, as among the Spartans and wild Indians, even in relaxa- 
tions a warlike principle was maintained. The dancers beat time 
with their swords on their shields, and when one of their cham- 
pions wished to show his contempt for the Romans, he executed 
before them a derisive pirouette. Was this remembered the other 
day at Vitoria ? 

But in Spain at every moment one retraces the steps of anti- 
quity ; thus still on the banks of the Boetis may be seen those 
dancing-girls of profligate Gades, which were exported to ancient 
Rome, with pickled tunnies, to the delight of wicked epicures 
and the horror of the good fathers of the early church, who com- 
pared them, and perhaps justly, to the capering performed by 
the daughter of Herodias. They were prohibited by Theodosius, 
because, according to St. Chrysostom, at such balls the devil never 
wanted a partner. The well-known statue at Naples called the 
Venere Callipige is the representation of Telethusa, or some other 
Cadiz dancing-girl. Seville is now in these matters, what Gades 
was ; never there is wanting some venerable gipsy hag, who will 
get up a funcion as these pretty proceedings are called, a word 
taken from the pontifical ceremonies ; for Italy set the fashion to 
Spain once, as France does now. These festivals must be paid 
for, since the gitanesque race, according to Cervantes, were only 
sent into this world as " fish-hooks for purses." The callees when 
young are very pretty — then they have such wheedling ways, 



334 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

and traffic on such sure wants and wishes, since to Spanish men 
they prophesy gold, to women, husbands. 

The scene of the ball is generally placed in the suburb Triana, 
which is the Transtevere of the town, and the home of bull-fighters, 
smugglers, picturesque rogues, and Egyptians, whose women are 
the premieres danseuses on these occasions, in which men never 
take a part. The house selected is usually one of those semi- 
Moorish abodes and perfect pictures, where rags, poverty, and 
ruin, are mixed up with marble columns, figs, fountains and 
grapes ; the party assembles in some stately saloon, whose gilded 
Arab roof — safe from the spoiler — hangs over whitewashed walls, 
and the few wooden benches on which the chaperons and invited 
are seated, among whom quantity is rather preferred to quality ; 
nor would the company or costume perhaps be admissible at the 
Mansion-house ; but here the past triumphs over the present ; the 
dance which is closely analogous to the Ghowasee of the Egyp- 
tians, and the Nautch of the Hindoos, is called the Ole by Span- 
iards, the Romalis by their gipsies ; the soul and essence of it con- 
sists in the expression of certain sentiment, one not indeed of a 
very sentimental or correct character. The ladies, who seem to 
have no bones, resolve the problem of perpetual motion, their feet 
having comparatively a sinecure, as the whole person performs a 
pantomime, and trembles like an aspen leaf; tke flexible form and 
Terpsichore figure of a young Andalucian girl — be she gipsy or 
not — is said by the learned, to have been designed by nature as 
the fit frame for her voluptuous imagination. 

Be that as it may, the scholar and classical commentator will 
every moment quote Martial, &c., when he beholds the unchanged 
balancing of hands, raised as if to catch showers of roses, the 
tapping of the feet, and the serpentine, quivering movements. A 
contagious excitement seizes the spectators, who, like Orientals, 
beat time with their hands in measured cadence, and at every 
pause applaud with cries and clappings. The damsels thus en- 
couraged, continue in violent action until nature is all but exhaust- 
ed ; then aniseed brandy, wine, and alpisteras are handed about, 
and the f&te, carried on to early dawn, often concludes in broken 
heads, which here are called " gipsy's fare." These dances ap- 
pear to a stranger from the chilly north, to be more marked by 



OPERA IN SPAIN. 335 



energy than by grace, nor have the legs less to do than tlie body, 
hips, and arms. The sight of this unchanged pastime of antiquity, 
which excites the Spaniards to frenzy, rather disgusts an English 
spectator, probably from some national malorganization, for, as 
Moiiere says, "I'Angleterre a produit des grands hommes dans les 
sciences et let beaux arts, mais pas un grand danseur — allez lire 
I'histoire." However indecent these dances may be, yet the pei'- 
formers are inviolably chaste, and as far at least as ungipsy guests 
are concerned, may be compared to iced punch at a rout ; young 
girls go through them before the applauding eyes of their parents 
and brothers, who would resent to the death any attempt on their 
sisters' virtue. 

During the lucid intervals between the ballet and the brandy, 
La cana, the true Arabic gaunia, song, is administered as a 
soother by some hirsute artiste, without frills, studs, diamonds, or 
kid gloves, whose staves, sad and melancholy, always begin and 
end with an ay ! a high-pitched sigh, or cr3^ These Moorish 
melodies, relics of auld lang syne, are best preserved in the hill- 
built villages near Ronda, where there are no roads for the mem- 
bers of Queen Christina's Conservatorio NapoUtano ; wherever 
I'academie tyrannizes, and the Italian opera prevails, adieu, alas ! 
to the tropes and tunes of the people : and now-a-days the opera 
exotic is cultivated in Spain by the higher classes, because, being 
fashionable at London and Paris, it is an exponent of the civili- 
zation of 1846. Although the audience in their honest hearts 
are as much bored there as elsewhere, yet the affair is pronounced 
by them to be charming, because it is so expensive, so select, and 
so far above the comprehension of the vulgar. Avoid it, how- 
ever, in Spain, ye our fair readers, for the second-rate singers 
are not fit to hold the score to those of thy own dear Hay- 
market. 

The real opera of Spain is in the shop of the Barbero or in the 
court-yard of the Venta ; in truth, good music, whether harmo- 
nious or scientific, vocal or instrumental, is seldom heard in this 
land, notwithstanding the eternal strumming and singing that is 
going on there. The very masses, as performed in the cathedrals, 
from the introduction of the pianoforte and the violin, have very 
little impressive or devotional character. The fiddle disenchants. 



336 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

Even Murillo, when he clapped catgut under a cherub chin in 
the clouds, thereby damaged the angelic sentiment. Let none 
despise the genuine songs and instruments of the Peninsula, as 
excellence in music is multiform, and much of it, both in name 
and substance, is conventional. Witness a whining ballad sung 
by a chorus out of work, to encoring crowds in the streets of 
merry old England, or a bagpipe-tune played in Ross-shire, which 
enchants the highlanders, who cry that strain again, but scares 
away the gieds. Let therefore the Spaniards enjoy also what 
they call music, although fastidious foreigners condemn it as 
Iberian and Oriental. They love to have it so, and will have 
their own way, in their own time and tune, Rossini and Paganini 
to the contrary notwithstanding. They — not the Italians — ai'e 
listened to by a delighted semi-Moro audience, with a most pro- 
found Oriental and melancholy attention. Like their love, their 
music, which is its food, is a serious affair ; yet the sad song, the 
guitar, and dance, at this moment, form the joy of careless poverty, 
the repose of sunburnt labor. The poor forget their toils, sans 
six sous et sans souci ; nay, even their meals, like Pliny's friend 
Claro, who lost his supper, Bcetican olives and gazpacho, to rur. 
after a Gaditanian dancing-gii'l. 

In venta and court-yard, in spite of a long day's work and 
scanty fare, at the sound of the guitar and click of the castanet, 
a new life is breathed into their veins. So far from feeling past 
fatigue, the very fatigue of the dance seems refreshing, and many 
a weary traveller will rue the midnight frolics of his noisy and 
saltatory fellow lodgers. Supper is no sooner over than " apres 
la pause la danse," — some muscular masculine performer, the 
very antithesis of Farinelli, screams forth his couplets, " screechin 
out his prosaic verse," either at the top of his voice, or drawls 
out his ballad, melancholy as the drone of a Lincolnshire bagpipe, 
and both alike to the imminent danger of his own trachea, and of 
all un-Spanish acoustic organs. For verily, to repeat Gray's un- 
handsome critique of the grand Opera FrauQais, it consists of 
" des miaulemens et des hurlemens effroyables, meles avec un 
tintamare du diable." As, however, in Paris, so in Spain, the 
audience are in raptures ; all men's ears grow to the tunes as if 
they had eaten ballads ; all join in chorus at the end of each 



THE GUITAR. 33'» 



verse ; this " private band," as among the sangre su, supplies the 
want of conversation, and converts a stupid silence into scientific 
attention, — ainsi les extremes se touchent. There is always in 
every company of Spaniards, whether soldiers, civilians, muleteers, 
or ministers, some one who can play the guitar more or less, like 
Louis XIV., who, according to Voltaire, was taught nothing but 
that and dancing. Godoy, the Prince of the Peace, one of the 
most worthless of the multitude of worthless ministers by whom 
Spain has been misgoverned, first captivated the royal Messalina 
by his talent of strumming on the guitar ; so Gonzales Bravo, 
editor of the Madrid Satirist, rose to be premier, and conciliated 
the virtuous Christina, who, soothed by the sweet sounds of this 
pepper-and-salted Amphion, forgot his libels on herself and 
Seiior Mufioz. It may be predicted of the Spains, that when 
this strumming is mute, the game will be up, as the Hebrew 
expression for the ne plus ultra desolation of an Oriental city 
is " the ceasing of the mirth of the guitar and tambourine." 

In Spain whenever and wherever the siren sounds are heard, a 
party is forthwith got up of all ages and sexes, who are attracted 
by the tinkling like swarming bees. The guitar is part and 
parcel of the Spaniard and his ballads ; he slings it across his 
shoulder with a ribbon, as was depicted on the tombs of Egypt 
four thousand years ago. The performers seldom are very scien- 
tific musicians ; they content themselves with striking the chords, 
sweeping the whole hand over the strings, or flourishing, and 
tapping the board with the thumb, at which they are very 
expert. Occasionally in the towns there is some one who has 
attained more power over this ungrateful instrument; but the 
attempt is a failure. The guitar responds coldly to Italian 
words and elaborate melody, which never come home to Spanish 
ears or hearts ; for, like the lyre of Anacreon, however often he 
might change the strings, love, sweet love, is its only theme. 
The multitude suit the tune to the song, both of which are 
frequently extemporaneous. They lisp in numbers, not to say 
verse ; but their splendid idiom lends itself to a prodigality of 
words, whether prose or poetry ; nor are either very difficult, 
where common sense is no necessary ingredient in the compo- 
sition ; accordingly the language comes in aid to the fertile 

PART II. 16 



338 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 



inother-wit of the natives ; rhymes are dispensed with at pleasure, 
or mixed according to caprice with assonants which consist of 
the mere recurrence of the same vowels, without reference to 
that of consonants, and even these, which poorly fill a foreign 
ear, are not always observed ; a change in intonation, or a few 
thumps more or less on the board, do the work, supersede all 
ilifFiculties, and constitute a rude prosody, and lead to music just 
as gestures do to dancing and to ballads, — " que se canta bal- 
lando ;'''' and which, when heard, reciprocally inspire a Saint 
Vitus's desire to snap fingers and kick heels, as all will admit 
in whose ears the liabas verdes of Leon, or the cachuca of Cadiz, 
yet ring. 

The words destined to set all this capering in motion are not 
written for cold British critics. Like sermons, they are deli- 
vered orally, and are never subjected to the disenchanting ordeal 
of type : and even such as may be professedly serious and not 
saltatory are listened to by those who come attuned to the hear- 
ing vein — who anticipate and re-echo the subject — who are ope- 
rated on by the contagious bias. Thus a fascinated audience of 
otherwise sensible Britons tolerates the positive presence of non- 
sense at an opera — 

'• Wliere rhyme Avith reason does dispense, 
And sound has right to govern sense." 

In order to feel the full power of the guitar and Spanish song, 
the performer should be a sprightly Andaluza, taught or iin- 
taught ; she wields the instrument as her fan or mantilla ; it 
seems to become portion of herself, and alive ; indeed the whole 
thing requires an ahandon, a fire, a gracia, which could not 
be risked by ladies of more northern climates and more 
tightly-laced zones. No wonder one of the old fathers of the 
church said that he would sooner face a singing basilisk than one 
of these performejs : she is good for nothing when pinned down 
to a piano, on which few Spanish women play even tolerably, 
and so with her singing, when she attempts ' Adelaide,' or any- 
thing in the sublime, beautiful, and serious, her failure is dead 
certain, while, taken in her own line, she is triumphant; the 
words of her song are often struck off, like Theodore Hook's, at 



MOORISH GUITARS. 



the moment, and allude to incidents and persons present ; some- 
times they are full of epigram and double entendre; they often 
sing what may not be spoken, and steal hearts through ears, like 
the Sirens, or as Cervantes has it, cuando cantan encanian. At 
other times their song is little better than meaningless jingle, with 
which the listeners are just as well satisfied. For, as Figaro says 
— "ce qui ne vaut pas la peine d'etre dit, on le chante." A 
good voice, which Italians call novanta-nove, ninety-nine parts 
out of the hundred, is very rare ; nothing strikes a traveller more 
unfavorably than the harsh voice of the women in general ; never 
mind, these ballad songs from the most remote antiquity have 
formed the delight of the people, have tempered the despotism of 
their church and state, have sustained a nation's resistance against 
foreign aggression. 

There is very little music ever printed in Spain ; the songs and 
airs are generally sold in MS. Sometimes, for the very illiterate, 
the notes are expressed in numeral figures, which correspond with 
the number of the strings. 

The best guitars in the world were made appropriately in 
Cadiz by the Pajez family, father and son ; of course an instru- 
ment in so much vogue was always an object of most careful 
thought in fair Bsetica ; thus in the seventh century the Sevillian 
guitar was shaped like the human breast, because, as archbishops 
said, the chords signified the pulsations of the heart, a corde. 
The instruments of the Andalucian Moors were strung after 
these significant heartstrings ; Zaryab remodelled the guitar by 
adding a fifth string of bright red, to represent blood, the treble 
or first being yellow to indicate bile ; and to this hour, on the 
banks of the Guadalquivir, when dusky eve calls forth the 
cloaked serenader, the ruby drops of the heart female, are more 
surely liquefied by a judicious manipulation of cat-gut, than 
ever were those of San Januario by book or candle ; nor, so 
it is said, when the tinkling is continuous are all martial livers 
unwrung. 

However that may be, the sad tunes of these Oriental ditties 
are still effective in spite of their antiquity ; indeed certain sounds 
have a mysterious aptitude to express certain moods of the mind, 
in connexion with some unexplained sympathy between the sen- 



340 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

tient and intellectual organs, and the simplest are by far the most 
ancient. Ornate melody is a modern invention from Italy ; and 
although in lands of greater intercourse and fastidiousness, the 
conventional has ejected the national, fashion has not shamed or 
silenced the old airs of Spain — those " howlings of Tarshish." 
Indeed, national tunes, like the songs of birds, are not taught in 
orchestras, but by mothers to their infant progeny in the cradling 
nest. As the Spaniard is warlike without being military, salta- 
tory without being graceful, so he is musical without being har- 
monious; he is just the raw man material made by nature, and 
treats himself as he does the raw products of his soil, by leaving 
art and final development to the foreigner. 

The day that he becomes a scientific fiddler, or a capital cotton 
spinner, his charm will be at an end ; long therefore may he turn 
a deaf ear to moralists and political economists, who cannot abide 
the guitar, who say that it has done more harm to Spain than 
hail-stones or drought, by fostering a prodigious idleness and love- 
making, whereby the land is cursed with a greater surplus of 
foundlings, than men of fortune ; how indeed can these calami- 
ties be avoided, when the tempter hangs up this fatal instrument 
on a peg in every house ? Our immelodious laborers and unsal- 
tatory operatives are put forth by Manchester missionaries as an 
example of industry to the Majos and Manolas of Spain : " be- 
hold how they toil, twelve and fourteen hours every day ;" yet 
these philanthropists should remember that from their having no 
other recreation beyond the public or dissenting-house, they pine 
when unemployed, because not knowing what to do with them- 
selves when idle ; this to most Spaniards is a foretaste of the 
bliss of heaven, while occupation, thought in England to be hap- 
piness, is the treadmill doom of the lost forever. Nor can it be 
denied that the facility of junketing in the Peninsula, the grapes, 
guitars, songs, skippings and other incidents to fine climate, mili- 
tate against that dogged, desperate, determined hard-working, by 
which our laborers beat the world hollow, fiddling and pirouetting 
being excepted. 



PHILOSOPHY OF THE CIGAR, 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

Manufacture of Cigars — Tobacco — Smuggling via Gibraltar — Cigars of 
Ferdinand VII. — Making a Cigarrito — Zumalacarreguy and the School- 
master — Time and Money wasted in Smoking — Postscript on Spanish 
Stock. 

But whether at bull-fight or theatre, be he lay or clerical, 
every Spaniard who can a£brd it, consoles himself continually 
with cigar, sleep — not bed — time only excepted. This is his 
nepenthe, his pleasure opiate, which, like Souchong, soothes but 
does not inebriate ; it is to him his " Te veniente die et te 
decedente." 

The manufacture of the cigar is the most active one carried on 
in the Peninsula. The buildings are palaces ; witness those at 
Seville, Malaga, and Valencia. Since a cigar is a sine qua non 
in every Spaniard's mouth, for otherwise he would resemble a 
house without a chimney, a steamer without a funnel, it must 
have its page in every Spanish book ; indeed, as one of the most 
learned native authors remarked, " You will think me tiresome 
with my tobacconistical details, but the vast bulk of readers will 
be more pleased with it, than with an account of all the pictures 
in the world." They all opine, that a good cigar — an article 
scarce in this land of smoking and contradiction — keeps a Chris- 
tian hidalgo cooler in summer and warmer in winter than his 
wife and cloak ; while at all times and seasons it diminishes sor- 
row and doubles joy, as a man's better half does in Great Bri- 
tain. " The fact is, Squire," says Sam Slick, " the moment a man 
takes to a pipe he becomes a philosopher ; it is the poor man's 
friend ; it calms the mind, soothes the temper, and makes a man 
patient under trouble." Can it be wondered at, that the Oriental 
and Spanish population should cling to this relief from whips and 
scorns, and the oppressor's wrong, or steep in sweet oblivious 
stupefaction the misery of being fretted and excited by empty 



342 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

larders, vicious political institutions, and a very hot climate ? 
They believe that it deadens their over-excitable imagination, and 
appeases their too exquisite nervous sensibility ; they agree with 
Moliere, although they never read him, " Quoique Ton puisse 
dire, Aristote et toute la philosophie, il n'y a rien d'egal au 
tabac." The divine Isaac Barrow resorted to this panpharmacon 
whenever he wished to collect his thoughts ; Sir Walter Raleigh, 
the patron of Virginia, smoked a pipe just before he lost his head, 
" at which some formal people were scandalized ; but," adds 
Aubrey, " I think it was properly done to settle his spirits." 
The pedant James, who condemned both Raleigh and tobacco, 
said the bill of fare of the dinner which he should give his Sa- 
tanic majesty, would be " a pig, a p(^ of ling, and mustard, with 
a pipe of tobacco for digestion." So true it is that " what's one 
man's meat is another man's poison ;" but at all events, in hun- 
gry Spain it is both meat and drink, and the chief smoke con- 
nected with proceedings of the mouth issues from labial, not house 
chimneys. 

Tobacco, this anodyne for the irritability of human reason, is, 
like spirituous liquors which make it drunk, a highly-taxed arti- 
cle in all civilized societies. In Spain, the Bourbon dynasty (as 
elsewhere) is the hereditary tobacconist-general, and the privilege 
of sale is generally farmed out to some contractor ; accordingly, 
such a trump as a really good home-made cigar is hardly to be 
had for love or money in the Peninsula. Diogenes would sooner 
expect to find an honest man in any of the government offices. 
As there is no royal road to the science of cigar-making, the ar- 
ticle is badly concocted, of bad materials, and, to add insult to 
injury, is charged at a most exorbitant price. In order to benefit 
the Havailah, tobacco is not allowed to be grown in Spain, which 
it would do in perfection in the neighborhood of Malaga ; for the 
experiment was made, and having turned out quite successfully, 
the cultivation was immediately prohibited. The iniquity and 
dearness of the royal tobacco makes the fortune of the well-mean- 
ing smuggler, who being here, as everywhere, the great corrector 
of blundering chancellors of exchequers, provides a better and 
cheaper thing from Gibraltar. 

The proof of the extent to which his dealings are carried was 



SMUGGLED CIGARS. 



exemplified in 1828, when many thousand additional hands were 
obliged to be put on to the manufactories at Seville and Granada, 
to meet the increased demand occasioned by the impossibility of 
obtaining supplies from Gibraltar, in consequence of the yellow 
fever which was then raging there. No offence is more dread- 
fully punished in Spain than that of tobacco-smuggling, which 
robs the queen's pocket — all other robbery is treated as nothing, 
i'oi- her lieges only suffer. 

The encouragement afforded to the manufacture and smug- 
gling of cigars at Gibraltar is a never-failing source of ill blood 
and ill-will between the Spanish and English governments. This 
most serious evil is contrary to all treaties, injurious to Spain and 
England alike, and is beneficial only to aliens of the worst charac- 
ter, who form the real plagues and sore of Gibraltar. The Ame- 
rican and every other nation import their own tobacco, good, bad, 
and indifferent, into the fortress free of duty, and without repur- 
chasing British produce. It is made into cigars by Genoese, is 
smuggled into Spain by aliens, in boats under the British flag, 
which is disgraced by the traffic and exposed to insult from the 
revenue cutters of Spain, which it cannot in justice expect to 
have redressed. The Spaniards would have winked at the intro- 
duction of English hardware and cottons — objects of necessity, 
which do not interfere with this, their chief manufacture, and one 
of the most productive of royal monopolies. There is a wide dif- 
ference between encouraging real British commerce and this 
smuggling of foreign cigars, nor can Spain be expected to observe 
treaties towards us while we infringe them so scandalously and 
unprofitably on our parts. 

Many tobacchose epicures, who smoke their regular dozen or 
two, place the evil sufficient for the day between fresh lettuce- 
leaves : this damps the outer leaf of the article, and improves the 
narcotic effect ; mem., the inside, the trail, las iripas, as the Spa- 
niards call it, should be kept quite dry. The disordered interior 
of the royal cigars is masked by a good outside wrapper leaf, just 
as Spanish rags are cloaked by a decent capa, but I'habit ne fait 
pas le cigarre. Few except the rich can afford to smoke good 
cigars. Ferdinand VII., unlike his ancestor Louis XIV., " qui," 
says La Beaumelle, " hai'ssoit le tabac singulierement, quoiqu'un 



344 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

de ses meilleurs revenus," was not only a grand compounder but 
consumer thereof. He indulged in the royal extravagance of a 
very large thick cigar made in the Havaiiah expressly for his 
gracious use, as he was too good a judge to smoke his own manu- 
facture. Even of these he seldom smoked more than the half; 
the remainder was a grand perquisite, like our palace lights. 
The cigar was one of his pledges of love and hatred ; he would 
give one to his favorites when in sweet temper ; and often, when 
meditating a treacherous coup, would dismiss the unconscious vic- 
tim with a royal puro : and when the happy individual got home 
to smoke it, he was saluted by an Alguacil with an order to quit 
Madrid in twenty-four hours. The " innocent" Isabel, who does 
not smoke, substitutes sugar-plums : she regaled Olozaga with 
a sweet present, when she was " doing him" at the bidding of the 
Christinist camarilla. It would seem that the Spanish Bourbons 
when not " cretinized" into idiots, are creatures composed of 
cunning and cowardice. But " those who cannot dissimulate 
are unfit to reign" was the axiom of their illustrious ancestor 
Louis XI. 

In Spain the bulk of their happy subjects cannot afford, either 
the expense of tobacco, which is dear to them, or the gain of 
time, which is very cheap, by smoking a whole cigar right away. 
They make one afford occupation and recreation for half an hour. 
Though ^ew Spaniards ruin themselves in libraries, none are 
without a little blank-book of a particular paper which is made at 
Alcoy, in Valencia. At any pause all say at once — " pues, 
senores f echaremos un dgarrito — well then, my Lords, let us 
make a little cigar," and all set seriously to work ; every man, 
besides this book, is armed with a small case of flint, steel, and a 
combustible tinder. To make a paper cigar, like putting on a 
cloak, is an operation of much more difficulty than it seems, al- 
though all Spaniards, who have done nothing so much, from their 
childhood upwards, perform both with extreme facility and neat- 
ness. This is the mode : — the petaca, Arabice Butak, or little 
case worked by a fair hand, in the colored thread of the aloe, in 
which the store of cigars is kept, is taken out — a leaf is torn from 
the book, which is held between the lips, or downwards from the 
back of the hand, between the fore and middle finger of the left 



LIGHTING CIGARS. 345 

hand — a portion of the cigar, about a third, is cut off and rubbed 
slowly in the palms till reduced to a powder — it is then jerked 
into the paper-leaf, which is rolled up into a little squib, and the 
ends doubled down, one of which is bitten off and the other end is 
lighted. The cigarillo is smoked slowly, the last whiff being the 
bonne bouche, the breast, la pechuga. The little ends are thrown 
away : they are indeed little, for a Spanish fore-finger and thumb 
are quite fire-browned and fire-proof, although some polished ex- 
quisites use silver holders ; these remnants are picked up by the 
beggar- boys, who make up into fresh cigars the leavings of a 
thousand mouths. There is no want of fire in Spain ; every, 
where, what we should call link-boys run about with a slowly- 
burning rope for the benefit of the public. At many of the sheds 
where water and lemonade are sold, one of the ropes, twirled like 
a snake round a post, and ignited, is kept ready as the match of a 
besieged artilleryman ; while in the houses of the affluent, a small 
silver chafing-dish, with lighted charcoal, is usually on a table. 
Mr. Henningsen relates that Zumalacarreguy, when about to 
execute some Christinos at Villa Franca, observed one (a school- 
master) looking about, like Raleigh, for a light for his last dying 
puff in this life, upon which the General took his own cigar from 
his mouth, and handed it to him. The schoolmaster lighted his 
own, returned the other with a respectful bow, and went away 
smoking and reconciled to be shot. This urgent necessity levels 
all ranks, and it is allowable to stop any person for fire ; this 
proves the practical equality of all classes, and that democracy 
under a despotism, which exists in smoking Spain, as in the tor- 
rid East. The cigar forms a bond of union, an isthmus of com- 
munication between most heterogeneous oppositions. It is the 
habeas corpus of Spanish liberties. The soldier takes fire from 
the canon's lip, and the dark face of the humble laborer is 
whitened by the reflection of the cigar of the grandee and lounger. 
The lowest orders have a coarse roll or rope of tobacco, where- 
with to solace their sorrows, and it is their calumet of peace. 
Some of the Spanish fair sex are said to indulge in a quiet hidden 
cigarilla, una pajita, una reyna, but it is not thought either a sign 
of a lady, or of one of rigid virtue, to have recourse to these for- 
16* 



346 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

bidden pleasures ; for, says their proverb, whoever makes one 
basket will make a hundred. 

Nothing exposes a traveller to more difficulty than carrying 
much tobacco in his luggage ; yet all will remember never to be 
without some cigars, and the better the better. It is a trifling 
outlay, for although any cigar is acceptable, yet a real good one 
is a gift from a king. The greater the enjoyment of the smoker, 
the greater his respect for the donor ; a cigar may be given to 
everybody, whether high or low : thus the petaca is offered, as a 
polite Frenchman of La Vieille Cour (a race, alas ! all but ex- 
tinct) offered his snuff-box, by way of a prelude to conversation 
and intimacy. It is an act of civility, and implies no superiority, 
nor is there any humiliation in the acceptance ; it is twice blessed, 
" It blesseth him that gives and him that takes." It is the spell 
wherewith to charm the natives, who are its ready and obedient 
slaves, and, like a small kind word spoken in time, it works 
miracles. There is no country in the world where the stranger 
and traveller can purchase for half-a-crown, half the love and 
good- will which its investment in tobacco will ensure, therefore 
the man who grudges or neglects it is neither a philanthropist nor 
a philosopher. 

A calculation might be made by those fond of arithmetic — 
which we abhor — of the waste of time and money which is caused 
to the poor Spaniards by all this prodigious cigarising. This said 
tobacco importation of Raleigh is even a more doubtful good to 
the Peninsula than that of potatoes to cognate Ireland, where it 
fosters poverty and population. Let it be assumed that a respect- 
able Spaniard only smokes for fifty years, allow him the moderate 
allowance of six cigars a day — the Regent, it is said, consumed 
forty every twenty-four hours — calculate the cost of each cigar at 
two-pence, which is cheap enough anywhere for a decent one ; 
suppose that half of these are made into paper cigars, which 
require double time — how much Spanish time and private income 
is wasted in smoke ? That is the question which we are unable 
to answer. 

Here, alas ! the pen must be laid down ; an express from 
Albemarle-street informs us, that this page must go to press next 
week, seeing that the printer's devils celebrate Christmas time 



SPANISH STOCK. 347 



with a most religious abstinence from work. Many things of 
Spain must therefore be left in our inkstand, filled to the brim 
with good intentions. We had hoped, at our onset, to have 
sketched portraits of the Provincial and General Character of 
Spanish men — to have touched upon Spanish Soldiers and States- 
men — Journalism and Place Hunting — Mendicants, Ministers, 
and Mosquitoes — Charters, Cheatings, and Constitutions — Fine 
Arts — French and English Politics — Legends, Relics, and Re- 
ligion — Monks and Manners ; and last, not least — reserved indeed 
as a bonne bouche — the Eyes, Loves, Dress, and Details of the 
Spanish Ladies. It cannot be — nay, even as it is, " for stories 
somehow lengthen when begun," and especially if woven with 
Spanish yarn, even now the indulgence of our fair readers may 
be already exhausted by this sample of the Cosas de Espafia. 
Be that as it may, assuredly the smallest hint of a desire to the 
flattering contrary, which they may condescend to express, will 
be obeyed as a command by their grateful and humble sei'vant 
the author, who, as every true Spanish Hidalgo very properly 
concludes on similar, and on every occasion, "kisses their feet." 

Postscript. — In the first number of this work, at page 38, 
some particulars were given of Spanish Stock, derived, as was 
believed, from the most official and authentic sources. On the 
very evening that the volume was published, and too late there- 
fore for any corrections, the following obliging letter was re- 
ceived from an anonymous correspondent, which is now printed 
verbatim : — 

London, 30th November, 1846. 
Sir, 

I HAVE just perused your valuable and amusing work, biit must own 
I felt somewhat annoyed at seeing so gross a misrepresentation in the 
account you gave of the national debt of that country ; the amount you give 
is perfectly absurd. You say it has been increased to 279.033,089?. — this is 
too bad. Now I can give you the exact amount. The five per cents, con- 
sists of 40,000,000/. only ; the coupons upon that sum to 12,000,000Z. ; and 
the present 3 per cents, to 6,000,000?. ; in all, 58,000,000., and their own 
domestic debt, which is very trifling. Now this is rather different to your 
statement ; besides, you are doing your book great injury by writing the 
Spanish Stock down so ; more particularly so, as there is no doubt some 



348 THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR COUNTRY. 

final settlement will be come to before your second Number appears [?]. 
The country is far from being as you misrepresent it to be — bankrupt. 
She is very rich, and quite capable of meeting her engagements, which are 
so trifling — if you were to write down our Railroads I should think you a 
sensible man, for they are the greatest bubbles, since the great South Sea 
bubble. But Spanish is a fortune to whoever is so fortunate as to possess 
it now. I am, and have been for some years, a large holder, and am now 
looking forward to the realization of all my plans, in the present Minister 
of Finance, Seiior Mon, and the rising of that stock to its proper price — 
about 60 or 70. 

I should, as a friend, advise you to correct your book before you strike 
any more copies, if you wish to sell it, as a true representation of the pres- 
ent existing state of the country. Your book might have done ten years 
ago, but people will not be gulled now ; we are too well aware that almost 
all our own papers are bribed (and perhaps, books), to write down Spanish, 
and Spanish finance, by raising all manner of reports — of Carlist bands 
appearing in all directions, &c. &c. &c., which is most absurd — the Carl- 
ists' cause is dead. 

I hope, Sir, you will not be offended with these lines, but rather take 
them as a friendly hint, as I admire your book much ; and I hope you will 
yourself see the falsity of what has been inserted in a work of amusement, 
and correct it at once. 

I remain, Sir, 
Your obedient and humble Servant, 

A FRIEND OF TRUTH. 

To Ford, Esq. 

It is a trifle " too bad" to be thus set down by our complimen- 
tary correspondent as the inventor of these startling facts, figures, 
and " fallacies," since the full, true, and exact particulars are to 
be found at pages 85 and 89 of Mr. Macgregor's Commercial 
Tariffs of Spain, presented to both Houses of Parliament in 1844 
by the command of Her Majesty. And as there was some vari- 
ance in amount, the author all through quoted from other men's 
sums, and spoke doubtingly and approximatively, being little de- 
sirous of having anything connected with Spanish debts laid at his 
door, or charged to his account. He has no interest whatever in 
these matters, having never been the fortunate holder of one 
farthing either in Spanish funds or even English railroads. 
Equally a friend of truth as his kind monitor, he simply wished to 
caution fair readers, who might otherwise mis-invest, as he errone- 
ously it appears conceived, the savings in their pin-money. If he 



THE AUTHOR'S POSTSCRIPT. 



has unwittingly stated that which is not, he can but give up his 
authority, be very much ashamed, and insert the antidote to his 
errors. He sincerely hopes that all and every one of the bright 
visions of his anonymous friend may be realized. Had he him- 
self, which Heaven forfend ! been sent on the errand of discovery 
whether the Madrid ministers be made, or not, of squeezable 
materials, considering that Astrsea has not yet returned to Spain, 
with good governments, the golden age, or even a tariff, his first 
step would have been to grease the wheels with sovereign oint- 
ment ; and with a view of not being told by ministers and cashiers 
to call again to-morrow, he would have opened the negocio by 
offering somebody 20 per cent, on all the hard dollars paid down ; 
thus possibly some breath and time might be economized, and 
trifling disappointments prevented. 



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